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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