ROK to get gift of rare winged angels from China

Once found widely in China, Japan, Russia and the Korean Peninsula, the crested ibis was presumed to have become extinct until 1981, when seven of the birds were found in China's Shaanxi province.

Bird experts believe that the disruption of the food chain and the dramatic loss of habitat are major reasons why the birds have been almost brought to the brink of extinction.

"The use of pesticides has caused the death of a large amount of aquatic insects, which is the major food source for the ibis," said Ding Changqing, an ornithologist with the zoology institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

"Deforestation and artificial drainage of wetlands have also resulted in the massive loss of habitat for the birds," he added.

The birds were saved from the verge of extinction with the rediscovery of the seven ibises in China in 1981. But conservation efforts proved to be extremely difficult initially, experts said.

"At first, we didn't know how to feed the newly hatched chicks," Ding said. "Adult ibises that were raised artificially were also believed to have lost the ability to feed their own young."

A breakthrough came in 1999, helping Chinese experts to master artificially breeding the birds, Ding said. The number of ibises exceeded 1,000 by the end of last year.

Reintroducing the birds back to the wild is one of the challenges facing conservation efforts, scientists have said.

"To release the birds back to their natural habitat and to establish a wild population are the key priorities of current conservation efforts," Ding said.

Similarly, China and Japan have in recent years been working closely to protect the birds.

China in 1999 gave its first ibis pair, You You and Yang Yang, to Japan. At that time, only one Japanese-born ibis was left and it was too old to reproduce.

The crested ibises from China have reportedly helped bring back the birds from extinction in Japan, where there are currently more than 100 crested ibises in captivity. Japan is also reportedly planning to release a number of the birds back into the wild.

Editor:Wu Yan