The Jurong BirdPark has had 22 successful hatchings of the Bali mynah (above) since it started its captive breeding programme in 1989. -- PHOTO: JURONG BIRDPARKJURONG BirdPark has joined forces with conservation group Begawan Foundation and the Cologne Zoo in Germany to help rescue the Bali mynah from the jaws of extinction.
It will give three birds to the foundation to breed, and will receive three from the German zoo to incorporate into its breeding programme.
The organisations want to create as large a gene pool as they can, to ensure a sustainable flock for the future.
The Bali mynah is now found mainly on Nusa Penida, south of the main island of Bali in Indonesia.
Its population was once thought to have dwindled to just 16 in the wild.
Unlike Singapore's plain local mynah, the Bali mynah has a white body, brilliant blue-framed eyes, and a touch of black at its wingtips and tail feathers.
Singapore's mynah, believed to have been brought from Vietnam on board barges, typically has a black head, brown feathers with a touch of white at its wingtips, and a yellow beak.
The Bali mynah's striking looks have landed it in trouble as a collector's item, taking it to the brink of extinction.
It was registered as an endangered bird species by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora in 1970.
Begawan Foundation founders Bradley and Debbie Gardner began a breeding programme for the mynah and took four back 'home' to Bali from Britain in 1999. By 2001, the population had grown to 36.
Jurong BirdPark, which has four breeding pairs, has had 22 successful hatchings of the Bali mynah since its captive breeding programme began in 1989.
'We identify a compatible male and female, set them up as a breeding pair and put them together in an aviary with a nesting log,' said Wildlife Reserves Singapore's assistant director of zoology Biswajit Guha.
A built-in camera in the nest allows staff to watch the birds round the clock.
Three to four eggs are typically laid, with an incubation period of around 14 days.
Once hatched, the young grow rapidly and will fledge and leave the nest at around three weeks of age.
The Bali mynahs will be air-freighted in transport cages to ensure their well-being during the transfer process.
According to the May update of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, a record proportion - 12 per cent - of known bird species is threatened.
The IUCN is the world's oldest and largest global environmental network.
A total of 2,065 species are listed as being in need of help to stay in existence.
Since 1500, 133 documented bird species have become extinct. Eighteen of them have occurred in the last 25 years of the 20th century.
Three species have become extinct in the wild in the past nine years, according to conservation network BirdLife International.