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Environmental News
Regina Medina
St. Paul

Minnesota Zoo reinforcing bird habitat as escaped magpies are still missing

A bird sitting on a branch
A stock photo of a magpie sitting on a branch.
Courtesy of the Minnesota Zoo

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Several dozen callers from the surrounding Twin Cities community have tipped off zoo officials to sightings of three missing birds who escaped the zoo’s tropical aviary in July but, unfortunately, none of these reports have panned out, zoo officials say.

Now they are taking preventive action to ensure other tropical birds don’t get the chance to fly the coop.

The zoo has removed all birds from the Tropics aviary and is “working on installing secondary systems for containment,” zoo spokesperson Mike Stephenson said in an email.

Four female African long-tailed shrikes flew out of their Tropics aviary through an emergency exit door that was left open in the building, he said. Miraculously, one female shrike from the pack was later recovered and has been placed in quarantine.

Stephenson did not address all the details of how the bird was found but did offer that “this individual was returned to the Minnesota Zoo and is currently being held at our Animal Hospital for quarantine and evaluation.”

A team of veterinarians examined the bird and continue to monitor the shrike in quarantine. Each bird has leg bands used for identification.

The zoo had asked the birding public last week to be on the lookout for the birds, also known as magpie shrikes. All four birds were born at the zoo in 2015 and 2020.

Simone Maddox, a Ph.D student at the University of Minnesota, is a birder who studies the differences between bird populations in urban and rural areas. She believes they are close by because the weather in the Twin Cities is still warm. In comparison, the aviary temperature was set between 78 to 80 degrees.

Maddox, who disclosed that she is not an expert on African long-tailed shrikes, said “if it was colder, that would push them south, but right now I don’t know if that is even in the cards.”

She is pulling for the birds but couldn’t say for certain what the future holds for the magpies. The birds were in captivity, which might impact their survival outside the zoo.

“They are used to eating a specific diet. They might be pickier than the average wild bird out there.”

Maddox’s birder colleagues at the College of Biological Sciences are on the lookout for the birds, but she believes it will be a challenge to find them.

“If you’re a birder out there, it’s something to think about, but the chances you’ll see them are pretty low.”