Conservation experts in Southwest China's Sichuan Province have brought in 50 crested ibis to establish a breeding program, and are planning to allow the public to meet the endangered birds in 2018.
The birds are from Central China's Henan, East China's Zhejiang and Northwest China's Shaanxi provinces, and are being kept in a protected reserve near Mount Emei, Xiong Tieyi, chief of the Emei Mountain Biological Resources Experimental Station, told the Global Times.
The 25 breeding pairs were transferred to Sichuan at the end of 2016, a traditional nesting ground of the birds going back hundreds of years.
The pairs should start mating in March, Xiong said, adding that this is the first time that Sichuan has introduced a group of crested ibis.
The crested ibis is monogamous and a bird will not mate with another if its partner dies, so establishing breeding pairs is crucial, Xiong said.
He said that the program will conduct research into artificial reproduction, wild training and disease resistance of the endangered bird, so they can be released into the wild within five years.
The center said that the public would be able to view the ibis from May 1, 2018, when the number of artificially reproduced birds will probably have exceeded 100.
Long Tinglun, an engineer with the forestry department, said the crested ibis have extremely particular needs for their habitat, and Sichuan provides an ideal ecological environment for the birds to live and breed, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
Once common in Japan, China, Russia and the Korean Peninsula, zoologists thought that the crested ibis became extinct in the first half of the 20th century.
But in 1981, seven crested ibis were found in Shaanxi's Yangxian county.
During the past three decades, the population of crested ibis in China has grown from seven to some 2,500 due to conservation efforts by the government and academic institutions.
The crested ibis is a first-class State-protected animal in China. In the birding world, it has the same status as a giant panda does in mammals, as its population is more or less the same as the giant panda, Xiong said.
