Species Returns From Brink Of Extinction

A species rebound is usually very good news, especially when it involves one that was previously declared "extinct in the wild."

Such was the case with the Guam kingfisher – known locally as the Sihek – when it was recently announced that the bird species had bred in the wild for the first time in nearly 40 years.

(MORE: The Great Ladybug Invasion And Its Impact)

What Caused The Species To Nearly Go Extinct?

The Sihek was nearly hunted off the map after a brown tree snake was accidentally transported to Guam on shipping containers in the 1940s, according to the Zoological Society of London. The invasive species had little resistance over the next four decades and proceeded to nearly eliminate the Siheks entirely from Guam.

How Was The Sihek Saved?

Starting in the 1980s, conservationists opted to bring the remaining birds into captivity and protect them in hopes of growing the species and preventing its extinction. So over the next 40 years, a captive breeding program would preserve the Siheks and prepare them for a return to the wild.

(MORE: Rescue Training Gone Wrong In Peru)

Where Have They Been Released?

The final step to bring these species back from extinction was to release them into the wild and allow them to breed outside of captivity, but returning them to Guam would create some of the same issues as in the 20th century. According to the Zoological Society of London, there are 10 times more snakes than people on Guam, so you can imagine how outnumbered this tiny bird species would be.

So instead, the birds' caretakers have been releasing them in Palmyra Atoll Preserve, some 3,600 miles to the east of Guam.

"Our Guam Sihek, a symbol of our island’s beauty, with their cerulean blue and cinnamon coloration mirroring our ocean blue water and red-orange sunsets, have been achieving the seemingly impossible," Yolonda Topasna from the Guam Department of Agriculture’s Division of Aquatic and Wildlife Resources said in a statement after six Siheks were released on Palmyra Atoll last September.

Only recently have the birds been observed laying eggs in the wild, which confirms that the four decades of hard work was worthwhile.