New, Rare Dove Hatchlings Are a ‘Source of Hope’ for the Extinct-in-the-Wild Birds and a Step Forward in the Ambitious Project to Save Them

The Socorro dove has not been recorded in the wild since 1972, but that could change within only a few years, conservationists say, thanks to a long-term reintroduction effort

Carlyn Kranking | Associate Web Editor, Science

May 15, 2026 11:07 a.m.

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The first eggshell began to break on March 7. With the tapping of a little beak, a Socorro dove emerged into the world. Ten days later, a second bird hatched, and on April 23, another broke free of its egg.

Those three hatchlings, born at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, are a lifeline for their species. To people in North America, they might look like the related mourning doves, which are commonly seen in backyards and on telephone wires. But Socorro doves stand out for the shimmering, metallic-hued feathers on their necks—and for the fact that they’re exceptionally rare.

Only about 200 Socorro doves are left on the planet, and all dwell in captivity. Since the species went extinct in the wild—last recorded on Mexico’s Socorro Island in 1972—it has been kept alive in a network of zoos. The breeding effort, known as the Socorro Dove Project, intends to release some of the birds back to their native habitat by 2030.

“These recent hatches represent a significant source of hope and progress for Socorro dove conservation efforts,” says Jenna Stallard, wildlife care manager for birds at San Diego Zoo Safari Park, to Smithsonian magazine. “Each successful hatch is an important step toward securing the future of this species, making every milestone incredibly meaningful.”

The San Diego Zoo Safari Park’s hatchings come on the heels of several similar breakthroughs for the species. In 2025, eight Socorro doves hatched at the Chester Zoo in England, and the country’s Whipsnade Zoo got its own hatchling in August. Bird Paradise in Singapore welcomed two Socorro dove chicks in August and September last year, the first of the species to hatch at the site. As part of the breeding program, Socorro doves are being cared for at about 50 institutions across three continents.

In San Diego, the Safari Park’s doves are “bold and curious,” according to the wildlife care team, and the hatchlings have progressed rapidly and fledged from the nest.

Those birds’ health is a good sign for the species, because one day, the hatchlings—or their descendants—might make a long-awaited return to the wild, becoming the first Socorro doves to live and breed freely in Mexico in more than five decades.

Eliminated by sheep and cats

Socorro doves have an extremely small native habitat: the island of Socorro. The 51-square-mile spot of land is the summit of a volcano that’s mostly underwater. It emerges from the Pacific Ocean’s waves roughly 370 miles off the western coast of Mexico and about 250 miles from the tip of Baja California. Socorro is the largest of the four volcanic Revillagigedo Islands, known as the “Galápagos of Mexico” for their ocean biodiversity—especially sharks and manta rays.

On land, Socorro Island’s ecosystem has faced a challenging history. More than 150 years ago, humans brought 100 sheep to the island, which grew into a population of 5,000 by 1960. The feral sheep caused widespread habitat degradation across the southern part of Socorro, overgrazing the vegetation and destroying the birds’ nest sites.

Then, in the 1950s, Mexico built a naval base on the island—and its residents introduced cats. These predators often get the blame for hunting the doves into oblivion, but they were really just the final straw in a decline that had been ongoing for decades.

“When the sheep destroyed that area, they were damaging the Socorro dove so bad that when cats arrived, the doves were already in deep trouble,” says Juan Esteban Martínez Gómez, a scientist with Mexico’s Institute of Ecology who is leading habitat restoration efforts on the island, to Smithsonian magazine. The “main factor” that sealed the doves’ fate was the destruction of their habitat, he adds.

Still, the cats played a role. The Socorro dove is more of a walker than a flier, a preference that “may have hastened its decline,” after the felines’ arrival, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

An earlier expedition by the California Academy of Sciences in 1925 had collected 17 of the doves and brought them into a captive breeding population. Now, the descendants of those birds are the only ones left in the world.

Rebuilding the ecosystem

Socorro doves have lived in human care for about 37 bird generations. Before any of them can be released back into the wild, conservationists must work to “ensure the habitat is safe for the birds to return to,” John Ewen, a professor in species recovery at the Zoological Society of London’s Institute of Zoology, tells Smithsonian magazine. One part of that is restoring their habitat. “These birds spend a lot of time on the ground and prefer to build their nests lower to the ground rather than in high trees, so dense forestry and bushes for them to nest in are essential.”

Teams in Mexico have been working for decades to rebuild the doves’ ecosystem. The federal government declared the Revillagigedo Islands a Biosphere Reserve in 1994. Between 2009 and 2012, an eradication effort rid the island of sheep to support the growth of vegetation. And Martínez’s teams are planting native trees on Socorro.

As far back as 1960, scientists understood that the relationship between the birds and the endemic forest is “so tight,” Martínez says, “you couldn’t harm forest without harming birds or vice versa.” On the flip side, he adds, that means that “if you want to recover … the birds, you need to recover vegetation.”

His teams have been researching the best ways to germinate the native trees, and they started planting on the island in 2015. But these plants tend to mature slowly, so “we need to find a way to jumpstart the germination and then the growth of these little saplings,” he says, “so that when we plant them, they have a better chance to become at least small trees that will also be used by the native birds.” Restoration could also benefit other endangered species on the island, including the Socorro mockingbird and the Socorro Island tree lizard.

At Africam Safari, a zoo outside Puebla, Mexico, the captive Socorro doves have access to aviaries with trees native to their ancestral island so that they can become familiar with the vegetation. Africam Safari joined the dove breeding program in 2013, and the following year, it celebrated the first hatching of a Socorro dove on Mexican soil since before the species went extinct in the wild.

Ultimately, conservationists will not plant trees across the entire island. Rather, they’ll plant in selected areas, then allow the birds to play a role in bringing the forest back, too. “The Socorro dove is a very important seed disperser,” Martínez says. “It’s a bird that pretty much eats all the fruits of these endemic trees of Socorro Island.” Ideally, once returned to the wild, the birds will help the trees spread across a wider area of land.

Logistically, it will take some time before the doves are reintroduced, but “within one or two years, this is probably going to happen,” Martínez says.

The future of Socorro Island

Conservationists, in collaboration with the Mexican Navy, have built an aviary on Socorro Island to accept the birds when they get there. New arrivals will have to be quarantined, then moved to a release pen and ultimately the wild. Once they’re set free, the birds will still need to be monitored.

“There has to be a program that protects the doves in the area where they are being released,” Martínez says. Though the sheep are gone, some feral cats remain, and a small population of doves could still be wiped out by its natural predators. For instance, past attempts at reintroduction of the Hawaiian crow, or ‘alalā, in the 1990s and 2010s ultimately ended due to natural predation by the Hawaiian hawk, or ‘io.

But the Socorro doves have some cause for hope: Doves in zoos retain their natural reflex against aerial predators, such as the endemic Socorro red-tailed hawk, Martínez notes. And a 2016 study reported “clear indications in the recovery of vegetation cover and improvement of soil quality” after the eradication of sheep.

From all the time the birds have spent in human care, scientists have been able to learn a lot about the species that could inform reintroduction work. They’ve detailed the doves’ “breeding behaviors, pair bonding and nest sites—important information that will help with their conservation and establishing a self-sustaining population in the wild,” Ewen says. The zoos have also demonstrated that Socorro doves see a drop-off in their reproductive potential after about five or six years of age.

So, when birds are finally brought to the island, they’ll need to be fairly young. Then, “hopefully, they also will pair and bond and reproduce,” Martínez says. “We are hopeful for the best, and we need to be also prepared for a new round of challenges that that new phase is going to bring.”

In a time of global biodiversity loss, conservationists emphasize the importance of recovering species while we still can. “It is more vital than ever that we protect these rare birds,” Ewen says.

Carlyn Kranking | | Read More

Carlyn Kranking is Smithsonian magazine’s associate web editor for science.