Mississippi Kite

One of the more important programs conducted by the Raptor Rehabilitation Program at the Memphis Zoo & Aquarium is the reintroduction of the Mississippi Kite into historic habitat along the upper Mississippi River areas of the mid-south. The kite was once a common resident of the area, but due to many factors including shootings and the overuse of pestisides their numbers gradually fell until by the 1970's there were years when only a single bird was observed by birders in Shelby County. It was clear that something needed to be done to regain historic numbers.

In the early 1980's the Assistant Curator of Birds at the Memphis Zoo saw a note from the Sedgewick County Zoo in Kansas that stated that they had three juvenile kites that were in need of a home. In Kansas the kite is considered a "pest" bird due to the fact that they will defend their nests and young by diving at any threat. These threats are usually individuals
who get too close (in the eyes of the parent birds) to an active nest. The birds will dive again and again until the person is driven away. In the past the standard approach was to kill the birds and destroy the nest and nestlings, both of which are illegal. However, many birds were destroyed in this manner. The three juvenile birds were from a problem nest on a golf coarse in the Witchita area. The Memphis Zoo was able to obtain these three birds and after a few weeks in a hacking box on top of the bird house they were released. The hope was that they would stay in the general area of release and after a winter migration to locations in South America they would return to breed in the Memphis area.

Over the next 12 years a total of 253 birds have come from Kansas to Memphis for reintroduction. After a few years of release in the general area of the Memphis Zoo a healthy breeding population was established. New release locations were started at local state parks (T.O. Fuller and Meeman Shelby Forest State Parks), as well as locations at greated distances from Memphis (Hatchie National Wildlife Refuge on the Hatchie River about 50 miles north of Memphis). For the last few years the birds have been released in the general area of Paris Landing State Park/Land Between the
Lakes National Recreational Area of northwest Tennessee in Henry/Stewart Counties. This is an area of over 250,000 acres along the Tennessee/Mississippi/Cumberland Rivers, and while there had been no confirmed sightings of kites in modern times, in the last three years the number of sightings has grown each year.

The number of sightings in the Memphis/Shelby County areas has risen from a low of 3 per year in the early 1980's to over 150 sightings in 1998. At lease two pair of birds nested and fledged young on the grounds of the Memphis Zoo & Aquarium in 1998. Another pair was observed feeding young on the grounds of Rhodes College directly across the street from the zoo. While there is no concrete proof that these birds are in any way related to any of the reintroduced birds, it is a good guess that they are probably offspring of some of those birds imported from Kansas.

While the birds are considered as pests in Kansas it is interesting to note that in all the years since those first three birds were imported from Kansas there has never been a single case of kites diving or attacking anybody. Most nests in the Memphis area are at the very tops of the tallest trees. This is usually a nest that is 150 to over 200 feet off the ground.
Obviously the parents feel safe enough at this height so they do not dive at people walking under them.

This program is a good example of a "win-win" conservation program. Kansas gets rid of problem birds without having to kill them and Memphis is able to release a once common raptor back into historic habitat that they almost
disappeared from due to human interaction.