A recent story about hope and hatching at Palmyra Atoll caught our eye. It's where nine young sihek, also known as the Guam kingfisher, are nesting.
The last wild sihek was seen in 1988. As the population crashed due to the accidental introduction of the brown tree snake, Guam biologists brought 29 sihek under human care and started a conservation breeding program.
In September 2024, nine mostly juvenile birds were moved to the remote atoll, where The Nature Conservancy and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service co-manage a research station in the Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge.
Caitlin Andrews, a bird conservation scientist with TNC and the Zoological Society of London, said those birds have laid their first eggs!
“It's a super exciting milestone,” Andrews said. “This is the first time that the sihek have been in the wild in 36 years. So just seeing them out in the wild and now thriving is a really hopeful moment for the species and the potential to return them to Guam some day.”
The field team staff at Palmyra know each individual bird and track them every day to ensure that they survive.
In addition to offering support to the birds, the team is also taking this chance to learn. Andrews said staff record their voices and narrate everything that the birds do, to learn what sihek need to thrive in the wild.
About 25 Association of Zoos and Aquariums-accredited institutions in the U.S., and one facility on Guam, helped raise the sihek specifically for Palmyra.
Palmyra Atoll was selected as the home for the first wild sihek in almost 40 years because it is largely predator-free and fully protected. It's located about 1,000 miles south of Honolulu.
The Guam kingfisher, or sihek, as the birds are known by the Indigenous CHamoru people of Guam, is described by Andrews as turquoise and cinnamon colored.
“It’s a forest bird, it’s really unique in that there are only a handful of forest birds native to Guam, and it was only ever found in Guam,” Andrews explained. “So it's really quite a special bird.”
The birds recently reached a milestone. Three mated pairs made their first breeding attempt.
“The first eggs were laid from late March to early April,” she told HPR. “They're all under a year old, apart from one older male. So we don't expect sihek this age to successfully hatch chicks, especially on this first attempt. They could surprise us… But they really won't reach the mature age where we expect them to start having chicks for another few months at least, but the first breeding attempt is great practice for them.”
Plans are underway for more young sihek to be released at Palmyra Atoll this summer as the team's conservation work continues. Andrews finds sihek provide a unique story of hope.
“They were extinct in the wild for almost 40 years. It shows that it's never too late for these species, and all of the efforts that we're doing today can help them see the wild again at some point.”
This interview aired on The Conversation on April 23, 2025. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m.
