Wisconsin mango ‘doing great’

The Wisconsin Green-breasted Mango perches in the aviary at Chicago's Brookfield Zoo. Photo by Jim Schulz/Chicago Zoological Society

A hummingbird that attracted hundreds of birders to Beloit, Wisconsin, in the fall of 2007 and then became the subject of controversy after it was captured and taken to the Brookfield Zoo in suburban Chicago is “doing great” today, say zoo officials.

The bird, a Green-breasted Mango, is sharing a free-flight aviary with tanagers, dacnises, trogons, and other tropical species. “He’s got a strong personality,” says Tim Snyder, curator of birds and reptiles, “so he really rules the roost.”

The hummingbird was taken into captivity after staying in Beloit for weeks. Its removal sparked arguments between birders who insisted that all wild birds should be left wild and others who feared the bird would perish in the coming winter.

Mango in flight. Photo by Jim Schulz/Chicago Zoological Society

The hummingbird, the only Green-breasted Mango at a U.S. zoo, now sports a breast of adult iridescent green, not the juvenal dark central stripe it wore at the time of its capture. — M.M.

Comments

[Sheri Williamson]

The mango didn't have to be left to die - they could have given him a free ride to the lower Rio Grande Valley, where his species occurs naturally and where he would have had a second chance at contributing to his species. The humane society and zoo chose to permanently incarcerate him against the advice of several hummingbird experts and in violation of wildlife rehabilitation and zoo ethics. It was a hypocritical decision (they wouldn't have bothered to "rescue" a less charismatic vagrant) and set a deeply troubling precedent for any "zoo-able" vagrant that doesn't fall under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

[MaineBirder]

It is obviously doing well. If it was thought that it may die if it did not leave the area, then this was best for the bird.