IDENTIFICATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF TRAITS FOR SUCCESSFUL REINTRODUCTION OF CAPTIVE BRED CHEER PHEASANT

摘要

The cheer pheasant ( Catreus wallichii) is one of the most endangered birds on the planet. It is restricted to small pockets in northern India and Pakistan, with a population estimated between 2,500-10,000 by IUCN. However, the number could be far less, as the bird has not been surveyed properly. In the late 1970s when the cheer pheasant was thought to be extinct in the wild, the World Pheasant Association (WPA) and the Government of Pakistan jointly launched a massive cheer reintroduction project, which is still in operation. The project failed drastically in terms of its output (i.e. number of released birds in the wild and their rate of survival thereafter). One of the many factors responsible for its failure was that the bird's behavior was never studied in captivity. The aim of this paper is to pinpoint certain peculiar (physical and behavioral) features of the cheer pheasant which can be further conditioned to provide the bird with better chances of survival. The paper also establishes grounds for further or similar field studies.