EcoChina | Captive-bred green peafowls naturally reproduce in China

KUNMING, May 23 (Xinhua) -- Four green peafowl chicks were recently hatched naturally in a wild training base in southwest China's Yunnan Province, marking the first successful natural breeding of the captive-bred species in a simulated wild environment and major progress in the country's rewilding efforts for the rare birds.

The young birds were discovered in mid-May via camera surveillance at the training base located at the Weishan Qinghua green peafowl provincial nature reserve in the Bai Autonomous Prefecture of Dali.

The base was co-founded by the nature reserve, the Kunming Institute of Zoology (KIZ) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Yunnan Forest Nature Center (YFNC), with a focus on wild training of captive-bred green peafowls.

The green peafowl, China's only native peafowl species, is classified as "endangered" on the IUCN Red List, with a higher extinction risk than giant pandas.

The population of wild green peafowls has risen from less than 500 in 2016 to about 850 today thanks to China's continuous ecological conservation efforts.