Stone Station on San Clemente Island served as the incubation and chick-rearing facility in the early days of the San Clemente Island loggerhead shrike recovery program. Perched on the eastern side of the rugged, windswept island, the research station was home for the biologists and researchers working on the project as well as the birds, and continues to be today. After great breeding success, the program has released about 30 to 40 birds each year since 1999, and the wild population has grown from only 5 breeding pairs in 1999 to over 50 breeding pairs in 2006. By 2011, the breeding population combining both wild birds and those in managed care numbered more than 170 shrikes.

The San Clemente Island loggerhead shrike is a subspecies only found in this one location. It is a predatory songbird, an interesting combination of an agile bird about the size of a mockingbird with a pretty call that also has a sharp beak and claws for hunting mice and lizards. Its population had declined as the result of habitat degradation—more than 150 years ago, goats had been introduced to the island and became feral over time, eating all the native vegetation, which the shrikes depended on for nest sites and shelter. Another aspect of the recovery program was to control and restrict the goat population and implement habitat restoration.

Feed me! Shrike chicks are altricial, helpless and needing care and feeding from their parents until they fledge and can start fending for themselves. In the recovery program, the researchers played the role of the parents, keeping the chicks warm, hydrated, and clean—and filling the insistently open little mouths at amazingly short intervals. It's not easy being a bird mom!

Long Live the Locals

On nearby San Clemente Island, a bird subspecies found only in this one spot in Southern California was going extinct. There were only 14 to 18 San Clemente Island loggerhead shrikes left in 1991, and they needed help if they were going to survive. In collaboration with the U.S. Navy, which had jurisdiction over the island, the Zoological Society began an emergency conservation program to incubate eggs and raise chicks at the Zoo and Wild Animal Park to build the population. Biologists also collected eggs from wild parents to raise on the island, so the parents would “double clutch” and produce another set of chicks. The efforts were successful, and in 1992, the Stone Station research facility was established on the island to continue breeding the birds and prepare for a reintroduction program.

1991

Expansion 1987 - 1996