As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Thursday 20 December 2018

How the crested ibis population went from seven to 3,000



NATURE
By Ding Qian
2018-12-11 11:02 GMT+8

The crested ibis is a large white ibis with distinctive red claws. At one time, they were widespread in China, Japan, the Korean Peninsula and Russia. However, due to a loss of habitat, illegal hunting and widespread use of pesticides and fertilizers, the bird was on the brink of extinction.

In 1981, only seven wild crested ibises were discovered in Yangxian, China's Shaanxi Province. Now the population of the endangered bird has been growing thanks to decades of conservation.

Initially, scientist employed methods such as all-weather monitoring and radio tracking to protect crested ibis from being injured, but it turned out to be not effective enough; the growth of the bird's population was extremely slow. In 1999, the population had only reached 50.

In 1990, Chinese scientists began to conduct research on the artificial breeding of crested ibis. They have overcome technical difficulties such as feed allocation, artificial hatching, and have successfully cultivated seven generations of the bird.

The breeding program led to the fast growth of the bird's population, expanding the species' habitat from just five to 14,000 square kilometers across the country. But inbreeding also brings high risk of deformity. Some birds were born with obvious defects such as problematic claws. To lower such risks, genetic management and selection was conducted, where only genetically stronger birds were chosen to be reproduced in the wild.  


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