Masking tape helps to save endangered kiwi chick

Updated

Claire Travers works at the Rainbow Springs Nature Park, in New Zealand, which runs a conservation program for endangered kiwi birds, according to the BBC.

Travers and her team were recently given a developing kiwi egg with a noticeable puncture in it.

Eggs typically provide all the resources a baby bird needs to develop before hatching; but, damage to the shell can be life-threatening which is a situation Claire Travers and her team recently faced.

"The shell was broken through to the egg's internal membrane, splitting it so the membrane had collapsed on top of the chick, which is very dangerous," Travers told Newshub.

Recognizing that the contents could become too dry without additional protection, Travers decided to try and mitigate the problem by affixing part of another shell over the damaged area with masking tape.

Travers doubted the clever solution would work, but almost two weeks later, the kiwi chick, which has since been named Fissure, emerged alive thanks to the work of Travers and her team.

"To be honest I didn't think the chick had any chance of surviving because the hole in the shell was so big, I was absolutely over the moon when it hatched," she told Radio New Zealand. "It really gave me a thrill that against all odds we had saved one of our iconic kiwi chicks."

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