Dead birds found in passenger’s baggage from China at Virginia airport

Agriculture officials have incinerated a box of dead birds that a traveler from China tried to bring into the U.S.

Officials say the birds were discovered in the passenger’s luggage at Washington Dulles International Airport last month.

When officials intercepted the package, the passenger said it was cat food. There’s still no word on what kind of birds they were.

They were tiny, about 2.5 to 3.5 inches in length. Bird imports from China are prohibited because of potential exposure to avian influenza.

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Endangered birds spotted in E China

Source: Xinhua| 2019-11-21 16:40:28|Editor: ZX

HEFEI, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- A bevy of Chinese mergansers, an endangered bird species under state class-one protection, have been captured on camera by shutterbugs in a wetland in eastern China's Anhui Province.

This is the fifth year in a row that Chinese mergansers have been observed in Huoshan County. "We've seen about 10 such birds this year," said Du Shihong, an amateur photographer.

"I'm so happy to see them every year. It is rare to see such lovely and cute birds. Their appearance shows our environment is getting better and better, which is even more exciting," said Du.

Chinese mergansers have a history of more than 10 million years. There are about 1,000 of them worldwide, and the far east of Russia and China serve as their main breeding ground.

In China, the birds mostly live in the northeastern provinces of Heilongjiang and Jilin, northern Hebei Province and the south side of the Yangtze River.

Source

Scientists find two identical-looking bird species have very different genes

NOVEMBER 13, 2019

by University of Bath

While reports of species going extinct are sadly becoming common, an international team of scientists has identified a new species of bird living on the Southern coast of China, that diverged from their Northern relatives around half a million years ago.

New research by the Milner Centre for Evolution academics in collaboration with Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou (China) shows that Southern and Northern breeding populations of plovers in China are in fact two distinct species: Kentish plover (Charadrius alexandrinus) in the North and white-faced plover (Charadrius dealbatus) in the South.

Using state-of-the-art genomics analysis, the team revealed that the Kentish plover and white-faced plover diverged approximately half a million years ago due to cycling sea level changes between the Eastern and Southern China Sea causing intermittent isolation of the two regional populations.

The results show that despite looking very similar, the two plover species have high levels of genetic divergence on their sex chromosomes, (Z chromosome) than on other chromosomes, indicating that sexual selection might play a role to in the evolution of the two species.

Dr. Yang Liu, a visiting scholar from Sun Yat-sen University at the Milner Centre for Evolution, led the work. He said: "The initial divergence of the two plovers was probably triggered by the geographical isolation.

"However, other factors, such as ecological specializations, behavioral divergence, and sexual selection could also contribute to the speciation of the two species.

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Tiny magpie-sized dinosaurs with bat-like wings lived in China 163 million years ago, scientists say after discovery of new fossil

The fossil was discovered in China and thought to be about 163 million years old

Newly discovered species is further proof of tiny dinosaurs with bat-like wings 

The membrane wings were previously unknown among theropod dinosaurs

Study shows that, as they were beginning to fly, dinosaurs closely related to birds were experimenting with a range of different wing structures

By VICTORIA BELL FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 18:01, 8 May 2019 | UPDATED: 08:26, 9 May 2019

The fossil of a newly discovered dinosaur adds further evidence to the theory that there was once a species with bat-like wings living 163 million years ago. 

Scientists have found remains of a dinosaur, named Ambopteryx longibrachium, in Liaoning Province, China.

Chinese scientists found that the magpie-sized therapod had a long wrist bone that likely supported membranous wings, which may have allowed it to glide between trees. 

The discovery of the unusual wing has only been seen once among theropods, a dinosaur characterised by their three-toed limbs.  

A previous specimen, also found in China, was described by scientists in 2015 and named Yi qi, after the Mandarin for 'strange wing'.

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Flamingos make rare appearance in N China

Source: Xinhua| 2019-04-25 20:47:07|Editor: mingmei

HOHHOT, April 25 (Xinhua) -- A small group of flamingos have recently been spotted in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, local forest police said Thursday.

Five large pink birds were spotted ambling in a lake in Dengkou County, a known spot for migratory birds, according to the forest police, saying the birds were tall with thick downturned bills and long and graceful necks.

The forest police later confirmed that the large birds were flamingos, which seldom make an appearance in north China because of its colder climate.

The reason for the appearance of flamingos in the area is unknown. Local forest police said they would launch an investigation into the case.

A ranger has been dispatched to observe and monitor the birds' activity and prevent them from being affected by human beings.

Flamingos like warm climates. They mainly live in tropical and subtropical zones.

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Coastal area revival boosts arrival of a critically endangered bird in China

18:32, 11-Feb-2019

Alok Gupta

One of the world's rarest migratory birds, barely a few steps away from extinction -- Spoon-billed Sandpiper -- has been sighted at various coastal areas in China.

Around 26 individuals were spotted at seven protected areas of southern China, a joint survey by the Mangrove Conservation Foundation (MCF) and Center for East Asian Australasian Flyway Studies (CEAAF), completed early last month, found.

Declared critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), less than 650 Spoon-billed Sandpipers survive in various parts of the world.

Tiny in size, these birds undertake an annual marathon migration of 7,000 kilometers to breed. En route to their breeding grounds, they make a three-month stopover at Tiaozini mudflats in east China's Jiangsu Province to moult -- a process of replacing wing feathers -- before continuing their journey to Russia.  

According to the survey, 13 birds were sighted in the Leizhou Peninsula located at the southernmost tip of the Chinese mainland. 

One Spoon-billed Sandpiper each was spotted in Yangjiang City in south China's Guangdong Province, Beihai City in southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Zhao'an County in east China's Fujian Province. 

Six birds were seen in the Chinese coastal city of Fangchenggang, southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. 

Two birds each were observed in east China's Fujian Minjiang delta and Qinzhou City in southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. 

"The sighting covers about 3.7 percent of the bird's total population. Such a large presence of Spoon-billed Sandpiper is due to China's ban on reclamation that has revived its wintering ground," Yifei Jia, a post-doctoral researcher with the School of Nature Conservation, Beijing Forestry University, told CGTN.

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China, Russia, Mongolia jointly protect Siberian crane

Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-17 20:17:08|Editor: ZX

NANCHANG, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- Six organizations from China, Russia and Mongolia signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on the conservation of the Siberian crane Thursday in east China's Jiangxi Province.

Also known as the Siberian white crane, or the snow crane, the species is rated as critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.

The six organizations -- the School of Nature Conservation of Beijing Forestry University, a Siberian cranes protection center in the city of Nanchang, two institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a Mongolian bird conservation center and a nature reserve administration in Dornod Province -- signed the MOU of Siberian Crane Research and Conservation in Nanchang, capital of Jiangxi.

Guo Yumin, a professor with the Beijing Forestry University, said that all parties decided to join hands to protect the Siberian crane after multiple discussions. The participants will work together to collect and share scientific data such as breeding areas, population size and different habitats.

According to the MOU, the Russian side will focus on the investigation of the breeding areas of Siberian crane, while the Chinese side is mainly responsible for the investigation of the bird's winter area, and the Mongolian side will carry out research on Siberian cranes in the summer area.

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'Super bird father' has rescued thousands of wild birds, and returned them all to the wild

Lin Yingying

2018-11-18 17:49 GMT+8

In 2003, Tian Zhiwei saved 13 large wild birds from death. He fed each a kilogram of fish every day, going through three metric tons of fish in the six months that followed. An ornithologist informed him that the birds were oriental white storks, which have a population of less than 3,000 worldwide. They prefer Poyang and Dongting lakes in China for wintering, and Far East Russia for breeding.

When the birds recovered, Tian thought he could release them back to the wild, but they were unexpectedly sent to a zoo for show. When he visited them later on, he found only six remained.

The man made up his mind to build a rescue station to help injured wild birds, and ensure they go back where they belonged – the wild, instead of the zoo. 

And in 2011, that sanctuary was finally set up.

He used to be a soldier and worked in the aquatic products processing industry, but he decided to temporarily leave his job without a salary and devote his time to the conservation of wild birds. 

Continued and video  

New Species of Prehistoric Short-Tailed Bird Found in China

Sep 26, 2018 by News Staff / Source

Paleontologists have found the remains — the well-preserved complete skeleton and feathers — of a short-tailed bird that lived 127 million years ago (Early Cretaceous epoch) in northeastern China.

The ancient bird, dubbed Jinguofortis perplexus, had a body mass of 250 g, a wing span of 27.5 inches (70 cm), and a unique combination of traits.

“This fossil bird had a jaw with small teeth like their theropod dinosaur relatives,” explained Dr. Zhonghe Zhou, a researcher in the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

“It also had a short bony tail ending in a compound bone called a pygostyle (that evolved after the earliest known bird, Archaeopteryx); gizzard stones showing that it mostly ate plants; and a third finger with only two bones in it (unlike other early birds).”

Based on its skeleton and feathers, Jinguofortis perplexus probably flew a bit differently than birds do today.

“In flying birds, the shoulder, which experiences high stress during flight, is a tight joint between unfused bones,” the paleontologists said.

“In contrast, Jinguofortis perplexus preserves a shoulder girdle where the major bones of the shoulder, the shoulder blade (scapula) and the coracoid, are fused to one another, forming a scapulocoracoid.”

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China zoo still searching for two rare cranes on the loose

Source:Global Times Published: 2018/9/9 17:53:40

Two nationally protected cranes have escaped from a Southwest China zoo, and employees are still trying to lure them back.

A threatened species and among the world's rarest, the red-crowned crane is among the tallest, standing around 1.5 meters with a wingspan of up to 2.5 meters.   

A group of three of the birds first flew the coop on Wednesday during a flight exercise that involved whistled commands from the ground at Guizhou Forest Wildlife Zoo.

Zookeeper Zhang Jing said the birds didn't respond to his whistled signal to return and kept flying for around 30 minutes before disappearing from sight.  

So far only one of the birds was found in a nearby village.

The zoo has since extended its search for the nationally protected birds to cover a 30-kilometer radius. 

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Crested ibis population increasing in China

Source: Xinhua| 2018-06-30 14:36:54

XI'AN, June 30 (Xinhua) -- Twenty-three more crested ibises, a bird once thought to be extinct, have been born since February in the Juhe River area in Tongchuan City in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, the rare bird's main habitat in China.

Until the discovery of seven wild crested ibises on May 23, 1981 in Yangxian, Shaanxi Province, the birds, once common in Japan, China, Russia and the Korean Peninsula, were thought to be extinct in the wild.

The population of the endangered bird species has been growing in recent years thanks to decades of conservation.

The local forestry department freed 62 captive-bred ibises into the wild in the Juhe River area in 2013 and 2015. The birds have adapted to the natural environment well and 69 more crested ibis chicks were born within five years, according to Wang Huaqiang, head of the wild animal protection station in Yaozhou district of Tongchuan city.

Currently, about 2,500 crested ibises live in Shaanxi Province. Their habitat covers around 14,000 square kilometers.

Source  

Missing bird who flies Adelaide-Arctic route spotted in China

HE was gone for three years — but not forgotten. South Australians feared their favourite feathered friend had perished after he dropped off the radar until this photo emerged.

The AdvertiserJUNE 19, 201810:27PM

HE’S back! Go-Go Godwit, South Australia’s premier frequent flyer, has been sighted in China after fans feared he may have flown into the sunset.

The male Bar-tailed godwit regularly spends summer at Thompson Beach, north of Adelaide, where he was tagged by volunteers in 2012 and leaves in autumn on an incredible journey north to breeding grounds in the Arctic Circle.

The annual migratory journey these birds take from Adelaide to the Arctic via China involves a round trip of around 26,000km.

Given that godwits can live for up to 30 years, a bird could fly up to 800,000km in migratory journeys during its life, about the same as a return trip to the moon.

Go-Go, more formally known as AKK due to the identification tag on his leg, was last seen in China in 2015 when The Advertiser reported his progress.

Since then he fell off the radar, leading to fears he had died or been killed.

However. after three years missing in action the plucky traveller has been spotted at Nanpu on Bohai Bay in China where wildlife photographer Adrian Boyle took a mobile phone photo through a telescope to confirm his unique yellow tag.

The reappearance of the long-distance local has overjoyed local shorebird watchers who are well aware of the toll exhaustion, hunting and habitat loss takes on the thousands of birds who leave each year from Gulf St Vincent beaches on their epic flight.

Adrian Boyle, originally from Millicent, has been a regular visitor to Bohai Bay to count and scan the mudflats for flagged birds. He is part of the Global Flyway Network, a partnership between researchers worldwide devoted to the long term study of long distance migrating shorebirds.

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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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China's giant panda base helps breed rare bird

China's giant panda research base said on Sunday that it has hatched one Chinese monal (Lophophorus lhuysii) egg, a bird as rare as the giant panda, and covering a similar range.

The rare bird, native to alpine shrubs of over 3,000 meters above sea level, is one of the largest pheasants in the world. It is listed on China's first-grade state protection as there are fewer than 3,000 left in the wild.

There are only 11 captive birds in Fengtongzhai National Nature Reserve in Sichuan.

The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding said the center and the reserve as well as the China West Normal University set up a lab in March to pass on experience in panda breeding to the protection of birds.

More eggs are expected to hatch soon.

The panda base has engaged with experts from the World Pheasant Association.

Source 

Rare birds appear in north China

Xinhua

  15:04 UTC+8, 2018-03-25       

Fifteen pairs of the critically endangered bird species, the Oriental stork, have appeared in the coastal areas of Tangshan, a city in north China's Hebei Province.

The rare Oriental storks have been spotted in Heiyanzi Township of Tangshan, with nine pairs of the birds brooding and another six nesting on a high voltage tower, said local sources.

The Oriental stork, also known as "ciconia boyciana" in Latin, is classified as critically endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List.

It is a large white bird with black wing feathers. An adult stork is about 1.2 meters long with a wingspan of 2 meters. The birds usually breed in northeast China. They are placed under top state protection in China.

It is believed that there are fewer than 3,000 Oriental storks living worldwide.

Source: Xinhua   Editor: Chen Xiaoli

Source 

Mekong River bird species threatened by dam discharges

national March 25, 2018 01:00

By PRATCH RUJIVANAROM
THE SUNDAY NATION 

The Mekong River ecosystem has been devastated from rising water levels during the dry season, as upstream dams in China discharge water to facilitate navigation in the river.

An activist from Chiang Rai’s Chiang Khong district, Jirasak Inthayot, yesterday raised concerns over the mass extinction of bird and fish species in the Mekong and the grave impacts on the livelihoods of local people from the unnatural rise in water levels during the dry season.

Jirasak said that the water level in the Mekong has been increasing since March 15 and, as of yesterday, all the sandy beaches, islets, and rocks in the river that are normally exposed at this time of year were submerged.

“These sandy beaches and rocky areas are the major nesting ground for many bird species, while the shallow and clear water of the Mekong River in the dry season allows gai (river algae) to bloom and become a food source for fish and local people,” he said.

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How China brought the crested ibis back from brink of extinction

PUBLISHED : Saturday, 27 January, 2018, 10:03am

UPDATED : Saturday, 27 January, 2018, 11:10pm

24 Jan 2018

With red claws and face – plus a large, curved black beak and crest – the crested ibis is known as the beauty bird or fairy bird in China. 

They have existed for nearly 60 million years and were widespread in China, the Korean peninsula, Japan and Russia until the 1960s when the widespread use of pesticides and fertilisers, plus a loss of habitat, drove the birds to near extinction. 

At one point, the entire species around the world was thought to be down to the last six birds. 

Yet today, some five decades later, the number of crested ibis in China has reached more than 2,600 at the last count, the Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua reported this month. The species is still endangered, but its revival is a conservation success story in China.

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Land reclamation threatens extremely rare spoon-billed sandpipers in China

by Shreya Dasgupta on 14 December 2017

Every year, the critically endangered spoon-billed sandpiper makes a crucial three-month stopover at Tiaozini mudflats in Jiangsu province on China’s eastern coast.

The Jiangsu government, however, has already converted 67.5 square kilometers of Tiaozini’s coastal waters into land and plans to reclaim another 599.5 square kilometers of Tiaozini by 2020.

Conservationists say that virtually all spoon-billed sandpipers that currently use Tiaozini could disappear if the reclamation goes ahead as planned, pushing the species to extinction.

One of the world’s rarest birds — the tiny spoon-billed sandpiper — could soon lose a critical habitat to land reclamation projects, warns a new report by Greenpeace.

Every year, the reddish-brown spoon-billed sandpiper (Eurynorhynchus pygmeus) makes a 5,000-mile long journey, flying from its breeding grounds in Arctic Russia to its wintering sites in places like southern China, Bangladesh and Myanmar. On the way, the bird makes a crucial three-month stopover at Tiaozini mudflats in Jiangsu province on China’s eastern coast.

This is the single most important site for the species, Nigel Clark of the British Trust for Ornithology told Mongabay. The birds rely on the mudflats and wetlands not only for their annual moult — a period when they replace all their wing feathers — but also to refuel and to find refuge. The coastal site is also important for the birds during their journey back to the Russian breeding grounds. Moreover, Tiaozini is a critical habitat for other endangered birds like the Nordmann’s greenshank (Tringa guttifer) and the black-faced spoonbill (Platalea minor).

The Tiaozini mudflats, however, could soon be gone.

Read on  

China to add yellow-breasted bunting to endangered list

By Liu Caiyu

Source:Global Times Published: 2017/12/7 20:53:40

China will add yellow-breasted bunting to its the wild animal protection list "soon," an official said Thursday after media reported plummeting numbers in the last decade.

China is mulling including emberiza aureola, commonly known as the yellow-breasted bunting, for a revised list including a higher degree of endangerment, a department official told the Global Times.

The government official, who insisted on anonymity including the relevant department, did not say when the revised list will be released.

The response came as media reported that non-government organization the International Union for Conservation of Nature upgraded the species to "critically endangered."

"The overall rate of population decline is even greater than previously thought and may have become extremely rapid during the past three generations (11 years)," the union posted on its website. 

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China’s key role in international fight to save one of rarest birds in the world from extinction

A wetland in Jiangsu province – a vital stopover for the spoon-billed sandpiper on its migration south from Siberia – needs protecting against development, one of a number of threats to a species with under 250 breeding pairs left

PUBLISHED : Saturday, 18 November, 2017, 6:18pm

UPDATED : Saturday, 18 November, 2017, 7:11pm

Ewen Mcleish

18 Nov 2017

Pavel Tomkovich spent the summer 300 kilometres below the Arctic Circle in Chukotka, an isolated coastal region of northeastern Siberia. Each day he packed hand-held flares and a pepper spray as protection against bears, and set off into the wilderness in search of a critically endangered bird – the spoon-billed sandpiper.

Tomkovich, head of the ornithological department of Moscow State University’s Zoological Museum, is part of the international Spoon-Billed Sandpiper Taskforce, involving Russia, China and a number of other countries fighting to save the species from extinction. With numbers falling from an estimated 1,000 breeding pairs at the turn of the millennium to fewer than 250 pairs in 2014, the taskforce is hoping efforts will lead to a 50 per cent increase in the population by 2025.

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