The bird curator, Antonín Vaidl, said, “In the autumn, we left both pairs of Pel's fishing owls in their indoor quarters so they could focus on nesting. Our efforts were rewarded with one of the pairs building a nest. It was at the start of the year that we first observed changes in both adults’ behaviour and soon we discovered they had a chick.”

At the start, the mother warmed and fed the chick, so the parents were left alone with plenty of food. However, just a few days later, the situation changed. “A week passed and, unfortunately, we discovered that the chick had been pushed out of the nest. What’s more, it was suffering from hypothermia, so we popped it in an incubator and proceeded to rear it ourselves,” added Vaidl. In his opinion, returning it to the nest would have been too risky.

The chick was then hand-fed with dead baby mice and rats, and later with fish. The Pel’s fishing owl, as its name implies, is a fish-eating owl whose food in the wild consists almost entirely of fish. They hunt their prey from perches hanging just above the water’s surface or search for it while wading through shallow water. They have also been known to eat frogs, crustaceans and even small crocodiles.

Prague’s juvenile Pel’s fishing owl is a significant achievement at the global level: Prague Zoo is the only zoo that has managed to breed this rare species. Photo Petr Hamerník, Prague Zoo

By the end of winter, the Prague chick continued to readily accept food and was thriving, so, at the end of March, it was returned to its parents in an improvised nest cavity. Here it could gradually become familiarised with the parents via a grille in the entrance hole. So far, it cannot be said that this is a complete “adoption by its own parents”, as Prague Zoo has seen in the past, e.g. breeding the Javan green magpies or last year’s success with the kea, but the parents are showing a great deal of tolerance to their chick. This step is important for socialization. Its return to the aviary also makes the chick readily visible from the visitor area.

Prague Zoo has been keeping Pel's fishing owls since 2019, when it acquired the two pairs, mentioned above, from a specialized owl breeding centre in the Italian town of Monticello. It thus became the only public institution in the world where it is possible to see this species. In the wild, Pel’s fishing owls inhabit sub-Saharan Africa. It is one of the largest owls in the world, with adults weighing up to two kilograms and having a wingspan of one and a half metres.

The juvenile Pel’s fishing owl (pictured right) is characterized by its light colouring and the remnants of powder down feathers. Visitors will easily recognize it as it sits beside its parents. Photo Petr Hamerník, Prague Zoo