Population recovery for this species has relied largely on captive breeding. In 1987, the first captive breeding and reintroduction project for the milky stork was initiated in Zoo Negara in Malaysia (a country where the wild milky stork population declined by over 90% from the 1980s to 2005) from a small young group of five males and five females received from Singapore Zoo and Johor Zoo. From these 10 individuals, the captive population increased to over 100 individuals by 2005. Therefore, with the decline in the wild milky stork population in Malaysia since the 1980s, the captive, free-flying population has steadily risen.