Kirkleatham birds have beaten the Brexit deadline

Animal moves between zoos and wildlife parks don’t just happen, they take a lot of planning, and there was of course the extra pressure of Brexit.

The new superb starling is a small but distinctive bird, with metallic green and blue colouring

In the run-up to Brexit, zoos and wildlife parks across the UK and Europe were rushing to complete animal moves before the Brexit deadline – and we too were part of that rush, because we had a young Absyinanian ground hornbill to be collected from a zoo in France.

The young hornbill had been assigned to us as a mate for our female by the species studbook keeper – the person who coordinates the breeding programme and animal moves for that species right across Europe.

For all moves of animals between different collections, health checks must be done to ensure the animals are fit and healthy, along with any necessary paperwork – more of which will now be needed for moving animals between the UK and Europe. Once all the health checks are done and the paperwork is in place, the move can go ahead.

Sometimes we would collect the animals ourselves and at other times (like this one) we use a specialist zoo/ animal transporter firm. Luckily for us, all went smoothly and our young hornbill arrived safely from France. He wasn’t the only move this month.

One of the Kirkleatham porcupines headed off to a new life at London Zoo

A young superb starling – a beautiful species from East Africa – arrived from a private keeper in the UK to join our flock of this species at the centre.

But sadly leaving us was one of our porcupines, a young female who was born in 2019 has left us for a new life at London Zoo, where she joined a young male to form a new breeding pair. As we write we have other moves to complete, with some exciting new arrivals due to join us. It’s a busy time.

To support the work of Kirkleatham Owl Centre, go to www.kirkleathamowlcentre.co.uk