Crested Ibis (Courtesy WWF)
Planeta Azul » JAPAN, CHINA MAY JOIN HANDS TO RESCUE CRESTED IBIS
Chinese President Wen Jiabao is likely to announce the gift of several Chinese crested ibises when he meets Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe this weekend at an Asian leaders meeting in the Philippines, Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun daily said on Thursday.
The feathery gift would be the latest bilateral move to help save the crested ibis in Japan, a quest that began in 1998 with a similar presentation of two of the birds to Japan by China.
Masaru Hasegawa, head of the Sado Japanese Crested Ibis Conservation Center on Sado island in northwest Japan, said he hoped the report was true but couldn’t confirm it.
“We have been wishing for several years to get some more birds from China, mainly to help keep our birds from becoming too inbred,” Hasegawa added.
There are now 97 ibises in residence at the centre, which hopes to start reintroducing them to the wild in 2008.
If Japan receives new birds from China, they would act as “teachers” for the Japanese ibises when they start learning to fend for themselves in a halfway facility later this year, Hasegawa said.
“Our birds don’t know how to do anything,” he added.
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