Paignton Zoo Is Pretty In Pink After Rearing Rare Pigeon. Pinkness is the order of the day at Paignton Zoo after keepers successfully hand-rearing a rare pink pigeon squab for the first time. Once on the brink of extinction, their numbers in the wild were estimated to have dropped to as few as nine in 1991. However, thanks to conservation efforts by experts like Paignton Zoo's keeper Tom Tooley and his colleagues, the species has seen a gradual recovery. Tom, who has worked as a bird keeper at the zoo for over 27 years, pioneered a new method for hand-rearing young pigeons, or squabs, that have been abandoned by their parents. Explaining his approach, Tom said, “I developed a method which involves attaching a carefully sized catheter to a syringe, gently placed on the squab's tongue”. “This allows the squabs to consume the hand-rearing formula naturally.” Tom's even been to Mauritius to teach local conservationists his revolutionary method for rearing the rare bird - as efforts step up to bring it back from the brink.