Video from Chester Zoo shows the hatching of the Baer's pochard, one of the rarest ducks in the world.
The species is on the brink of extinction and the English zoo managed to record the birth of one of the ducklings inside an incubator.
The duckling was one of seven to hatch at Chester Zoo this year and thus give great hope to the species' population. Experts currently believe that just a couple of hundred of the Baer's pochard exist in the wild, their decline in numbers caused by hunting and the destruction of their habitat in Siberia and eastern Asia. In conservation organisations, there are around 250 of the Bear's pochard.
Amy Vercoe, a lead bird keeper at the zoo, said: "These ducklings tend to hatch at night meaning we miss the big moment when they finally manage to push their way out.
"On this occasion, the action happened in the daytime and I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to catch the beginnings of the duckling’s new life on camera.
"Baer’s pochard are incredibly rare and there can’t be many people who have witnessed a hatching, so it was a real privilege to see it.”
Baer’s pochard are listed by the International Union for the Conservation Nature (IUCN) as critically endangered as the species.
