Extremely endangered bird sees population rise

Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-18 14:47:15|Editor: ZD

HANGZHOU, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Scientists in eastern Zhejiang Province are pleased that that the population of rare Chinese crested tern has exceeded 100 for the first time.

"It means that the bird will probably avoid extinction," said Chen Shuihua, deputy head of Zhejiang Museum of Natural History.

The Chinese crested tern, discovered in Indonesia in 1861, is the world's most endangered tern species. The birds migrate to China's east coast in summer and fly to the Southeast Asia for the warmer winter. For a long time, it was believed that its population was less than 50.

In 2013, Zhejiang Museum of Natural History, Oregon State University of the United States and Xiangshan county ocean and fisheries administration started an experiment in Jiushan island natural reserve, attracting crested terns with fake birds and by playing recorded birdsong.

The experiment successfully attracted 19 Chinese crested terns in 2013, and 43 in 2014. The terns gave birth to 13 baby birds in 2014.

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Asia’s rarest seabird could be easier to spot in the future

28 Nov 2018

Researchers celebrate breeding success in South Korea for the Chinese Crested Tern – a bird once thought extinct. Decoy model birds have helped bolster the new colony, and the species has been spotted in Japan for the first time.

Trying to spot a Chinese Crested Tern amongst a colony of similar-looking Greater Crested can be likened to playing a high-pressure game of ‘Where’s Wally?’, in which rather than simply completing a fun puzzle-book by spotting a man in a red-striped jumper, the fate of an entire species relies on your attentive eyes.

So when, about three years ago, we reported a momentous discovery in the conservation of Asia’s rarest seabird, the Chinese Crested Tern Thalasseus bernsteini, we were very excited by what it could mean. Korean researchers had spotted five adults and one chick amidst a colony of Black-tailed Gulls on an uninhabited rocky island (Chilsando), 7 km off the southwest coast of South Korea. This was extra special because Chinese Crested Tern was feared extinct until 2000 when breeding birds were rediscovered on the Matsu Islands of Chinese Taiwan, and hadn’t been seen on the eastern side of the Yellow Sea for almost 100 years. Yunkyoung Lee, Researcher from the National Institute of Ecology (South Korea), remembers the moment well: 

“When I realised that we were looking at Chinese Crested Terns, I felt a thrill throughout my whole body”, she says. “Their slender appearance with black caps and white backs was eye-catching in the crowded colony of Black-tailed Gulls Larus crassirostris, which have white rounded heads and grey backs. However, in the field, we did not know immediately what they were. We had never seen this species before, let alone ever anticipated that they would lay eggs in Korea.”

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World's most endangered tern threatened by hybridization

HANGZHOU, May 23 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese crested tern, the world's most endangered tern species, is in danger of hybridizing with a sister species because of its small population, said Chinese ornithologists.

The hybridization of two closely related species may erode their gene pools and accelerate the rate of the rare bird's extinction, said Chen Shuihua, deputy director of the Zhejiang Museum of Natural History in east China's Zhejiang Province.

He said the museum and two other Chinese institutes have collected non-invasive DNA samples from five Chinese crested terns for genetic conservation studies, as they have observed that hybridization is likely to occur between the rare bird and its more abundant cousin, the great crested tern.

The white migrating bird with a black beak was first spotted in 1861, and has remained small in number, listed as "critically endangered" by the IUCN Red Data Book with fewer than 100 individuals globally.

Chen said that at all of the bird's breeding sites in the Chinese mainland and Taiwan, nests of the Chinese crested tern were found within great crested tern colonies.

He said although the two species are members of the same Sternini tribe, they diverged about a million years ago.

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Rare terns spotted around Penghu

By Liu Yu-ching and William Hetherington  /  Staff reporter, with staff writer

Birdwatching season is in full swing in Penghu County and endangered Chinese crested terns can be seen nesting now, the Penghu Association for the Study of Wild Birds said.

The tern is critically endangered, with only 50 of the birds thought to be left.

The association said every year from March to September, six types of seabirds — brown noddy, bridled tern, greater crested tern, black-naped tern, little tern and roseate tern — can be seen on the shores of Penghu’s islands.

The appearance of the rare Chinese crested tern this year has been causing a stir, it said.

Penghu is an ideal environment for Chinese terns to lay their eggs because only 20 percent of the archipelago’s 90 islands and islets are permanently inhabited, the association said.

The birds nest in Penghu in summer and then migrate to the Philippines in the winter, it said.

The association runs four bird-watching tours annually, taking visitors to Jishanyu (雞善嶼), Tiejhanyu (鐵砧嶼), Tinggouyu (錠鉤嶼), Sianjiao (險礁) as well as other uninhabited islets.

Every year there is more interest than the group’s tours can accommodate, so Penghu residents have seized the opportunity to use their own boats to present tours, it said.

The greater crested tern accounts for the largest group of seabirds seen on its tours this year, with 4,200 spotted around the islets, the association said.

Some Chinese crested terns were seen nesting this year and one birdwatcher was able to film one of them foraging for food in Magong Harbor (馬公港), it said.

“We advise birdwatchers to visit Penghu now, as this is the best time to appreciate them,” one association member said.

Read on … 

Taiwanese team first to band near-mythical bird

Staff writer, with CNA

A Taiwanese research team banded a juvenile Chinese crested tern (Thalasseus bernsteini) in July, hoping to track its migration and learn more about the “mythical” bird that roosts in three groups of islands off the southeastern coast of China from May to August, a Forestry Bureau official said.

Photo: Courtesy of the Forestry Bureau

It was the first-ever successful banding of a Chinese crested tern, Forestry Bureau conservation official Hsia Jung-sheng (夏榮生) said.

The rare species nests in Taiwan’s Matsu (馬祖), as well as Jiushan and Wuzhishan islands off China’s Zhejiang Province from May to August and locals consider it a summer migratory bird.

The population of the bird was estimated at less than 50 in the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List in 2000 and it is categorized as critically endangered, Hsia said.

Nature photographer Liang Chieh-te (梁皆得) happened to photograph the Chinese crested terns in Matsu while filming his documentary Fly, Kite Fly (老鷹想飛) in 2000.

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Outstandingly successful breeding year for rare Chinese Crested Tern

The Chinese Crested Tern (Thalasseus bernsteini) is one of the rarest birds in the world, with an estimated breeding population of only 100 birds.

Assumed extinct for the past six decades, it was rediscovered 15 years ago but is Critically Endangered with a very small population and only three known breeding sites.

A BirdLife International Partnership including the Hong Kong Bird Watching Society (BirdLife Partner), has recently announced that the Chinese Crested Tern has had its most successful breeding season since its rediscovery, thanks to a project to restore a breeding colony on Tiedun Dao, in the Jiushan Islands .

Also as part of this successful project, conservation groups and volunteers from mainland China, Hong Kong and the US successfully initiated the first ever tagging operation of Chinese Crested Tern and other seabirds on Jiushan Islands, where 31 birds were fitted with numbered bands on their legs so more can be learned about the species.

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China’s rarest seabird benefits from colony restoration

October 2013. Until this year, there were only two known breeding colonies of the Critically Endangered Chinese Crested Tern: the Mazu Islands off the coast of Fujian, and the Wuzhishan Islands off Zhejiang. However, this summer an innovative tern colony restoration project has apparently established another.

Earlier this year, a small island called Tiedun Dao in the Jiushan Islands - an archipelago where Chinese Crested Terns used to breed - was chosen for colony restoration. The restoration team expected it would take some years before there was any hope of attracting the birds back. Their plan was to use decoys and playback tern calls to initially attract Great Crested Terns to Tiedun Dao. It was hoped that the Great Crested Terns would initially colonise the island, their numbers would then gradually grow, and that Chinese Crested Terns, which have always been found nesting within large colonies of Great Crested Terns, might eventually follow too.

Immediate success

Yet by late September, and at the first attempt, a substantial new colony of Great Crested Terns had arrived on Tiedun Dao, raised hundreds of young and, among them, at least one Chinese Crested Tern chick also successfully fledged.

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Critically Endangered Chinese Crested Tern conservation vital so saving the species

Restoring a breeding colony for Chinese Crested Tern - Courtesy of Birdlife

Chinese Crested Tern (Sterna bernsteini) faces

 greater threat of extinction than China's Giant Panda. 

Credit Chen Lin/www.rarebirdsyearbook.com.

March 2013. In early March, an international workshop in Xiangshan, Zhejiang Province, China, marked the start of an ambitious plan to restore a network of breeding sites for the Critically Endangered Chinese Crested Tern Sterna bernsteini, probably the world's most threatened seabird.

Rediscovered in 2004 - Eggs destroyed by typhoon and thieves

After more than half a century with no breeding records, four adults and four chicks were discovered in 2000 on the Mazu Islands (administered by Taipei) off the coast of China's Fujian Province. In 2004 another colony was found in the Jiushan Islands, off Zhejiang Province, but breeding failed after two typhoons hit the islands. No breeding birds were seen in the Jiushans until 2007, when eight Chinese Crested Terns and about 2,000 Greater Crested Terns returned. But the colony was raided by egg poachers, and terns have not nested there since.

New colony

In 2008 a new colony, believed to be the birds that nested earlier on the Jiushans, was discovered in the Wuzhishan Islands, 80 km to the north. They have returned to nest on the Wuzhishans annually, but nesting space has become limited, and the terns have started using less favourable sites. News of the terns has spread, increasing the risk of disturbance from photographers.

Read on:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/critical-chinese-tern.html