Helping the San Clemente loggerhead shrike
Visiting the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park helps support a managed breeding program for an endangered little bird that lives on one island in the whole world. The San Clemente loggerhead shrike program is supported by San Diego Zoo Global in collaboration with the U.S. Navy to increase and support the wild population of these songbirds. The shrike is about the size of a mockingbird but is a tough survivor that hunts for mice and lizards.
The program is run on the undeveloped, Navy-owned San Clemente Island off the coast of southern California. Our population managers strive to maintain good genetic diversity resulting in healthy animals that can survive and breed in the wild upon release. Since 1999, this program has released about 30 to 40 captive-bred birds each year, and the wild population has grown from only 5 breeding pairs in 1999 to over 50 breeding pairs in 2006. 2008 was a banner year; the wild population successfully fledged more chicks than any previous year. by 2011, the breeding population numbered more than170 shrikes! More than 70 percent of the wild breeding pairs are release birds or their descendants.