Crested ibis was once a very large number of birds, the distribution is also very widespread, not only in China's region, even Japan, South Korea, Russia's Siberia and other regions have been distributed, once was one of the local birds everywhere, Japan's Edo period also had too many crested ibises, farmers began to hunt crested ibises cases.
But since the 1960s, the crested ibises have been declining and have gradually disappeared in South Korea, North Korea, Siberia and other places. In order to protect this rare bird, in December 1981, Japan captured all five remaining crested ibises in an artificial environment to try to protect and save the crested ibises in an artificial environment, but for various reasons, the five wild crested ibises failed to leave any offspring, and in October 2003, with the death of the last of the five crested ibises, "Akin", there were no more crested ibises in Japan.
In order to find and protect the crested ibis, Chinese scientist Liu Mengzeng and his team analyzed the historical distribution, climatic conditions and geographical status of the crested ibis, and selected more than 260 observation sites in 13 provinces across the country to find the whereabouts of wild crested ibises one by one.
After 3 years and more than 50,000 kilometers of scientific investigation, Liu Mengzeng and his team found the only 7 remaining crested ibises in Hanzhongyang County in southern Shaanxi on May 18, 1981, of which 4 were adult crested ibises and 3 were young birds.
After painstakingly finding these crested ibises, the scientists had two options, one was to protect them in situ, and the other was to capture them all and put them in a zoo. The advantage of in situ conservation is that it is more suitable for their original living environment, but the disadvantage is that scientists need to stay here. To protect the crested ibis, scientists have chosen the hardest path: in situ conservation.
In the beginning, the number of crested ibises was relatively small, and the loss of any individual could be a disaster for the crested ibis population, so the staff could be said to be guarding the crested ibis tree day and night.
In addition to birds of prey, snakes and cats are also their natural enemies, in order to protect the crested ibis, the staff tied a plastic sheet under the tree of the crested ibises to prevent snakes and cats from climbing.
In the wild, the crested ibises will give birth to 2-6 in a nest, and the first individuals in the same nest have a clear head advantage, they will crowd out smaller individuals, and even push them down the nest. Staff open nets under their nesting trees to prevent the chicks from falling to the ground. As a result, a small crested ibis, which had been pushed out of the nest, was picked up shortly after the tree and sent back to Beijing overnight, and the chick was lucky to survive under the hard care of the staff.
Crested ibises live in groups from July to March every year, and around February, crested ibises will go to find a mate, crested ibises belong to monogamous birds, every time in estrus, crested ibises will secrete a gray substance, they will use the beak of the bird to apply these gray substances to the feathers on the body, so whenever the estrus period, the crested ibises will appear gray-brown, which is also called "marriage feathers".
Crested ibises are very timid, very afraid of people, but also afraid of noise, but every year around the Qingming Festival, it is the time when the locals worship their ancestors, and the locals will set off firecrackers and burn paper money in the forest where the crested ibises inhabit. In order to ensure that the crested ibises are not disturbed, the staff once asked the locals to take a detour and cancel the ceremony of setting off firecrackers.
Usually, the staff will also go to local schools, villages and towns and other areas to popularize the science of crested ibis, after years of hard work, whether it is an 80-year-old or an 8-year-old doll, they know the importance of protecting crested ibis.
In addition to these, the biggest problem affecting the crested ibises lies in pesticides, crested ibises like to inhabit the wetland environment, feeding on small fish and shrimp, in order to protect these crested ibises, the local proposed 4 no-nos: not allowed to hunt in the crested ibis activity area, not allowed to cut down the trees in the crested ibis's nest, not allowed to sow pesticides and fertilizers in the crested ibises foraging area, not allowed to open land and set off cannons in the crested ibis breeding area.
But this protection alone is not enough, the number of crested ibises has not increased significantly in the first few years, and in order to better protect them, staff have placed some of them in artificial environments to incubate and raise.
In the last century, we didn't know much about crested ibises and had no experience in hatching crested ibises. But with the help of the telescope, the staff observed the experience of crested ibises in breeding chicks, such as: how often to turn eggs and dry eggs, the number of times to feed the cubs every day, etc., and simulated the wild living conditions in artificial environments.
Birds are thermostatic animals, in order to make the eggs heat evenly, they will stand up almost every hour to turn over the eggs, about 25-42 times a day. When the chicks are just hatched, the parent birds are fed 7-9 times a day, and after 1 month, they are fed 14-21 times a day.
Birds follow their parents to predatory areas about 50 days after birth, learn hunting techniques, and adapt to the wild environment, and only with these conditions can they leave their parents and live alone.
Under the persistent protection of the staff, there are now about 5,000 crested ibises in our country. In 2001, the IUCN reduced the crested ibises from critical to endangered and then to vulnerable.
Moreover, under the efforts of recent decades, artificially bred crested ibises have also been gradually released into the wild, and the release places range from Yang county, the origin of crested ibises, to Dongzhai in Henan, Deqing in Zhejiang, etc., and even Japan has the figure of China's crested ibises. In Yang County, the place of origin of the crested ibis, the crested ibis can be said to be everywhere, and the local people have become accustomed to the days of being accompanied by crested ibises.
As a result of the successful rescue of the crested ibis, China's crested ibis rescue case has also become a model for international wildlife protection.