Introducing one of the largest and most easily overlooked birds in Bird World. This is Stormy the Storm’s stork (Ciconia stormi). Stormy lives in the Aquatics room of the Bird World building. He hatched in February of 2005. He is a very secretive bird and tends to stay high in the canopy during the day without moving or making any noise making him very easy to overlook despite his size (he stands about 2 ½ feet tall). He is more active in the evening when it is quieter.  Stormy mainly eats fish and insects. He has very long legs so he can wade in deep water and tall grass. His beak also has to be long to reach into the water where he finds his food. One of his favorite pastimes is hunting for live minnows, which he receives as a treat on occasion. He occasionally will display to keepers when they are cleaning or feeding by bowing his head low and making a raspy noise.  Stormy is a favorite among the staff due to his quirky and sometimes stormy behaviors.

Storm’s storks are native to Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Thailand in Southeast Asia. They live in undisturbed forest and freshwater habitats. This species is one of the rarest species of stork. Storm’s storks are listed as Endangered by IUCN because they have a very small, fragmented population which is very rapidly declining, owing to destruction of lowland forest through logging, dam construction and conversion to oil-palm plantations. The species was thought to be extinct in Thailand until a photo was taken on a camera trap. Fewer than 500 individuals are thought to still exist. Storm’s storks are protected by law in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. Several wildlife areas in these countries are inhabited by Storm’s storks. A small nest protection project is underway in Borneo as well, in which conservationists are working to raise awareness about the Storm’s storks in the area. In Indonesia, poachers have also been rewarded for protecting Storm’s stork’s nests, which resulted in four chicks surviving to fledging between 2009 and 2011.

What can you do to help Storm’s storks? Cheyenne Mountain Zoo offers a sustainable palm oil shopping guide in the form of an app.  Search for palm oil is your app store or visit cmzoo.org/palmoil for more information. Palm oil is used in a variety of products purchased every day, but often the land used to grow palm oil was once home to animals.   Choose projects that use sustainable palm oil or an alternative to palm oil. Make the right choice today and help protect millions of wildlife and plant species like Storm’s storks, elephants, tigers, orangutans and countless other rainforest animals.