Cambodia records 973 critically endangered white-shoulder ibis: survey
Cambodia has recorded some 973 white-shoulder ibis in its wild, making the country the stronghold for this critically endangered species, the conservationists group said Thursday. BirdLife International and its partners including Cambodian Forestry Administration, People Resources and Conservation Foundation, Wildlife Conservation Society and Worldwide Fund for Nature, implemented a coordinated survey of 59 white-shouldered ibis roosts at sites across Cambodia. … Many of the roost locations are either outside of protected areas or in threatened protected areas and the future of this species is far from certain, said Hugh Wright, an expert on this species from the University of Cambridge. “Many of these birds are at risk of losing their habitat from imminent changes in land use and currently more than 79 percent of the birds were censused on roosts outside the boundaries of legally protected areas,”he said. … However, both of these sites are threatened by Economic Land Concessions which will destroy key nesting and foraging habitats for this species, he [Hugh Wright] said. … With a global population of only between 1,114 and 1,249 birds, Cambodia could hold as much as 97 percent of the world’s white- shouldered ibises and the country is of vital importance for the species’conservation, the press release said.
Xinhuanet News Staff
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/sci/2013-11/07/c_132868146.htm
