Eight Socorro dove chicks hatched at Chester Zoo in Albuquerque, New Mexico, this year. These brown floofs represent a significant milestone for a species that is extinct in the wild. Socorro doves (Zenaida graysoni) once lived fearlessly on Socorro Island, located 400 kilometers (250 miles) southwest of Mexico’s Baja California coast. Old reports describe birds that walked right through human camps and over people’s boots without fear. This friendly behavior would later cost them their lives. The trouble started when sheep arrived in the 1800s and ate the plants the doves needed. A naval base built in 1957 brought the final blow. An adult Socorro dove at Chester Zoo. Just 200 birds survive in conservation zoos globally Image courtesy of Chester Zoo. “Navy staff and their families brought house cats which became wild and caused terrible damage to the native wildlife, including the Socorro dove population, which was last seen in the wild in 1972,” Andrew Owen, head of Chester Zoo’s bird department, said in a statement. The feral cats hunted these trusting birds with deadly effect. Scientists who searched the island in 1978 and 1981 found no doves left. The species only survived because of quick thinking almost a century ago. In 1925, a California Academy of Sciences expedition took 17 Socorro doves back to the U.S. Every dove alive today comes from those birds. Today, all of the known remaining birds live in zoos across North America and Europe. About 200 birds make up the entire surviving population,…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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