Zookeepers in Prague turn into puppeteers to save baby vultures

PRAGUE (AP) — Zookeepers in Prague sometimes have to become puppeteers to save newborn birds rejected by their parents. This was the case for a lesser yellow-headed vulture chick hatched three weeks ago.

Bird keeper Antonín Vaidl said Thursday that when a dummy egg disappeared from the nest, it signaled to keepers that the parents were not ready to care for their two babies, despite doing so in 2022 and 2023.

The first-born is being kept in a box and fed using a puppet designed to mimic a parent bird, while another is expected to hatch in the next few days.

Vaidl said the puppet is needed to make sure the bird will be capable of breeding, which it won’t if it gets used to human interaction.

He explained that the puppet doesn’t have to be a perfect replica of an adult bird because the chick responds to certain signals, such as the pale orange coloration on its featherless head and neck.

Lesser yellow-headed vultures live in the wild in Latin America and Mexico. Prague Zoo is one of only three zoos in Europe that breed them.

In the past, the park successfully applied this treatment to save the critically endangered Javan green magpie and two rhinoceros hornbill chicks. The puppet-feeding technique is applicable for birds that live in pairs.

“The method has been working well,” Vaidl said. “We’ll see what happens with the vultures."

A lesser yellow-headed vulture that hatched three weeks ago is being fed by using a puppet that imitates a parent bird at the zoo in Prague, Czech Republic, Thursday, July 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

A lesser yellow-headed vulture that hatched three weeks ago is being fed by using a puppet that imitates a parent bird at the zoo in Prague, Czech Republic, Thursday, July 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

A lesser yellow-headed vulture that hatched three weeks ago is being fed by using a puppet that imitates a parent bird at the zoo in Prague, Czech Republic, Thursday, July 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

A lesser yellow-headed vulture that hatched three weeks ago is being fed by using a puppet that imitates a parent bird at the zoo in Prague, Czech Republic, Thursday, July 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

A lesser yellow-headed vulture that hatched three weeks ago is being fed by using a puppet that imitates a parent bird at the zoo in Prague, Czech Republic, Thursday, July 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

A lesser yellow-headed vulture that hatched three weeks ago is being fed by using a puppet that imitates a parent bird at the zoo in Prague, Czech Republic, Thursday, July 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

A lesser yellow-headed vulture that hatched three weeks ago is being fed by using a puppet that imitates a parent bird at the zoo in Prague, Czech Republic, Thursday, July 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

A lesser yellow-headed vulture that hatched three weeks ago is being fed by using a puppet that imitates a parent bird at the zoo in Prague, Czech Republic, Thursday, July 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

A lesser yellow-headed vulture that hatched three weeks ago is being fed by using a puppet that imitates a parent bird at the zoo in Prague, Czech Republic, Thursday, July 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

A lesser yellow-headed vulture that hatched three weeks ago is being fed by using a puppet that imitates a parent bird at the zoo in Prague, Czech Republic, Thursday, July 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

A lesser yellow-headed vulture that hatched three weeks ago is being fed by using a puppet that imitates a parent bird at the zoo in Prague, Czech Republic, Thursday, July 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

LONDON (AP) — Reports on April Fools' Day of the death of the world’s oldest living land animal — a 193-year-old tortoise called Jonathan — were greatly exaggerated.

Jonathan is still kicking — albeit slowly — on the island of St. Helena.

“It was a hoax,” Anne Dillon, head of communications on the island, told The Associated Press on Thursday. “I can just assure you that he is very much alive.”

News of the Seychelles giant tortoise's demise spread rapidly on social media on Wednesday.

An account on X, falsely claiming to be by Joe Hollins, a veterinarian who had worked with the reptile on the island in the south Atlantic Ocean between Africa and Brazil, said he was heartbroken to announce the death of the “gentle giant” that “outlived empires, wars, and generations of humans.”

The post quickly accumulated nearly 2 million views through Thursday, mostly an outpouring of condolences.

But Hollins later said on Facebook that he didn't even have an X account and something more sinister was afoot.

“There is a hoax — not even an April Fool — going around,” Hollins wrote. “The hoaxer is asking for crypto donations. It’s a con.”

Guinness World Records lists Jonathan as the oldest living land animal and the oldest tortoise ever. He was believed to be about 50 years old when he was brought to St. Helena in 1882.

The St. Helena government sent a photo of Jonathan taken Thursday of him roaming the grounds of the governor's residence on the island best known as the place Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled following his defeat by the British at Waterloo in 1815. It was the place where the former emperor of France died in 1821, about a decade before Jonathan is believed to have taken the first steps in what would become a very long life.

FILE - Tourists take photos of Jonathan, a then 192-year-old tortoise, on the lawn of Plantation House in Jamestown on the South Atlantic island of St. Helena, Feb. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Nicole Evatt, File)