China's rarest bird - population fallen to only fifty individuals
30 September 2007 - Chinese Crested Tern [Sterna bernstein] is China’s rarest bird, listed by BirdLife International as Critically Endangered. A recent study of this species highlights that the global population has fallen to less than fifty individuals, half what they were just three years ago. First discovered in 1861 and rarely recorded since, Chinese Crested Tern was largely presumed extinct until 2000, when four adults and four chicks were found amongst a colony of other tern species on Matsu, an island off the coast of Fujian Province. In 2004, it was discovered breeding at another site: Jiushan Islands, on the coast of Zhejiang Province of eastern China. At present these are the only known breeding sites in the world. Read more on www.birdlife.org
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