After Failed Courtship, Zoo Helps Rare Birds Breed

FRONT ROYAL, Va. (AP) -- When the National Zoo tried to set up a pair of rare white-naped cranes, the date went sour and the lovebirds fought.

So a bird keeper at the zoo's Conservation and Research Center in Front Royal gained the female's trust. He was able to artificially inseminate her without using restraint or anesthesia, which can be stressful.

A few weeks later, the female laid a fertile egg. Since the breeding program has more has more than enough males but badly needs females, staff at the research center developed a method to determine the sex of the chick before it hatched. They were able to extract genetic material from the egg and determine it was a female.

The chick hatched successfully on May 23. She was placed in "foster care" with her father's parents.