Endangered bird returns to South Korea 40 years after extinction

Rare wader is designated a national monument that features in popular children’s song

Jon Sharman

Wednesday 22 May 2019 18:48 

The endangered crested ibis has reportedly been reintroduced to South Korea 40 years after it went extinct in the Asian country. 

Forty of the rare wading birds were bred in captivity before being released into the wild at Upo Wetland in South Gyeongsang province, southeast of Seoul, the Yonhap news agency reported.  

The last time a crested ibis was spotted on the Korean peninsula is believed to have been in 1979 when it was spotted in the demilitarised zone separating the south from North Korea.

The bird used to be a common sight until pesticide use reportedly damaged its food sources. 

A designated national monument in South Korea, it is also seen in China and Japan.

The captive population in South Korea has now reached 363, according to the Agence France-Presse news agency.

The breeding programme began with a birds donated by Beijing.

In South Korea the crested ibis is linked to an eponymous popular children’s song, composed when Japan ruled the country.

Source

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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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  

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.

Continued  

Ibis Revival Helps Town Take Flight

- Midori Aoki

A wild bird once thought to be extinct is making a comeback in inland China. The endangered crested ibis' population is now in the thousands. Its revival is also hatching economic spinoffs in the area.

"The crested ibis is known for its beautiful color. In China, we believe that it brings luck and beauty," says Photographer Li Ping.

For more than 2 decades, Li has dedicated his life to capturing photos of the endangered crested ibis. He wants to raise awareness about the rare species.

"In order to save the crested ibis, more people need to know about it. We need to understand that saving the bird also means protecting the environment," says Li.

The wild bird used to live in East Asia and the Russian Far East. But its population plunged as human development encroached on the bird's habitat. At one point, researchers thought the crested ibis was extinct.

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Endangered crested ibis chick hatched in China after mother bird undergoes artificial insemination

Bird’s mother underwent artificial insemination as part of a breeding programme to protect the species’ numbers

PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 25 April, 2017, 1:30pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 25 April, 2017, 1:51pm 24 Apr 2017

The first crested ibis has hatched after its mother underwent artificial insemination as part of a programme in southwest China to protect the species’ numbers, according to a newspaper report.

The chick was born at a breeding station at Mount Emei in Sichuan province, the West China City Daily reported.

About 50 crested ibis were collected in Henan, Zhejiang and Shaanxi provinces last year and taken to the centre to take part in the breeding programme, according to the article.

The first egg was laid in March and finally hatched last week.

Staff had to crack open the top of the egg after the bird’s head got stuck.

The tiny chick has been placed in an incubator to help ensure its survival.
 

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Endangered ibises benefit from joining egret flocks

Date: March 22, 2017

Source: American Ornithological Society Publications Office

Birds benefit from flocking together -- even when they're not of a feather. According to a new study in The Auk: Ornithological Advances, China's endangered Crested Ibises benefit from joining forces with other, more visually-oriented bird species while searching for food.

Joining mixed-species flocks can reduce birds' risk of predation while boosting their foraging opportunities, but it can also expose them to competition and disease, and little research has been done on what this means for birds such as ibises that rely on their sense of touch to find food. Yuanxing Ye and Changqing Ding of the Beijing Forestry University and their colleagues studied the behavior of Crested Ibises foraging with and without Little Egrets in central China's Shaanxi Province, recording the birds' behavior with a digital video camera to determine whether they picked up on social cues from the other species. They found that ibises in mixed-species flocks became alert to threats sooner, suggesting they felt less at risk when mingling with the more visually-oriented egrets.



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32 endangered birds released into the wild

Thirty-two crested ibises were released on Wednesday from a protected enclosure to their natural habitat in the northern reach of the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi province.

After a two-year experiment in Yangxian county, the rare birds, including 14 adults, 10 subadults and eight juvenile birds, are now able to survive in the wild, said Chang Xiuyun, a senior scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Center under the Shaanxi Forestry Administration.

The birds, which were found in Japan, China, Russia and the Korean Peninsula, were believed to be extinct in the early 20th century.

Great efforts have been put into protecting the birds since 1981, when seven crested ibis were accidentally found in Yangxian county.

Since then, the number of crested ibises in China has increased to more than 1,700, including more than 1,000 in the wild, and 700 in captivity, according to the State Forestry Administration.

"These artificially bred birds are all descendents of the seven that were found in 1981," said Chang. "Interbreeding of the birds can cause risks such as deformity or high mortality due to low genetic diversity, and these issues threaten the already small population."

"Our aim in sending them back to the wild is to help the birds adapt to natural living conditions, improve their species and enlarge their habitat," she said.

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