Zoo Atlanta has welcomed six new chicks from one of the rarest birds on Earth, a striking white songbird found only on a small stretch of the Indonesian island of Bali. The zoo said the chicks hatched this year under breeding recommendations from the Bali myna Species Survival Plan, a coordinated program designed to keep the species genetically healthy as it claws back from the brink of extinction.
According to CBS News, Zoo Atlanta announced that six Bali myna chicks were welcomed this year, hatching under the SSP's breeding guidance. The zoo currently houses several Bali mynas that are visible to visitors, giving Atlanta a rare glimpse of a bird whose wild population has teetered perilously close to disappearing altogether. Adult Bali mynas are easy to pick out once you know what to look for — snow-white feathers tipped in black on the wings and tail, with electric blue patches of bare skin ringing their eyes, as Zoo Atlanta describes them.
A Species That Nearly Vanished
The numbers behind this story are staggering. The wild Bali myna population fell to just six individuals in 2001, according to the zoo, a low point that put the species on the edge of extinction in its only native range — a small region of Bali. By 1990, the species' wild population had already been reduced to roughly 20 individuals, according to a study published in the journal Oryx and cited by cambridge.org. The Bali myna has carried a Critically Endangered classification since 1994, a status that the same study notes remains unchanged today.
Zoo Atlanta says the species now faces a daily threat of illegal poaching for the pet trade, compounded by an ever-shrinking habitat driven by human encroachment. Those same pressures — trapping for collectors and loss of natural habitat — are the forces the zoo credits with nearly wiping the bird out in the first place.
Slow Signs of Recovery
Despite the grim history, there are signs the tide may be turning. Zoo Atlanta points to a 2025 population survey estimating about 600 Bali mynas now living in the wild, a dramatic rebound from the six birds counted in 2001. The zoo attributes that growth to intense conservation efforts, including breeding, reintroduction, and habitat protection work that it says have put the species slowly on the road to recovery.
That rebound tracks with findings published in Oryx, which reported that 196 captive-bred Bali mynas were released into the wild between 2000 and 2011. The same research found population increases, expansion into new areas of the national park and beyond, and successful breeding in both artificial and natural nest sites over the decade it examined.
Breeding Programs Face Their Own Setbacks
Recovery efforts on the ground in Bali haven't been without serious setbacks. A breeding center released 218 Bali starlings into Bali Barat National Park over 18 years, yet the wild population kept plummeting despite those releases, according to reporting from Mongabay. In one stark illustration of the poaching pressure the species faces, 78 birds were stolen from a breeding center inside the national park, the outlet reported.
A more recent count offers a glimmer of hope closer to the ground: an October 2021 survey found approximately 420 wild Bali starlings living in Bali Barat National Park, with another roughly 100 individuals estimated to live on Nusa Penida, according to hpconservation.com. For now, Zoo Atlanta's role is to keep its small flock breeding under the national Species Survival Plan, working alongside other AZA-accredited facilities to maintain a genetically diverse population of the bird, as the zoo describes on its website. The zoo has not said whether this year's six chicks are destined for release into the wild or will remain in managed care.
