World's First Captive Breeding of the Japanese Crested Ibis Nipponia nippon.

Abstract

The breeding center for Japanese Crested Ibises was established in the Beijing Zoo in 1986, and today five Japanese Crested Ibises are managed at that center. They were taken as nestlings from the wild in Yangxian County, Shaanxi Province, China. After careful rearing they are health in 1988. A pair of these birds, a female taken in 1985 and a male in 1986, were put for breeding in the same enclosure. Two eggs were laid on 13 and 15 June 1989, and two nestlings were hatched in July. In the morning of 8 July, a loud chirping was heard from the nest. We immediately went to inspect and found that the nestling was already out of the shell. The nestling was fully developed, but was dead from peck wounds on the head and abdomen. Concurrent with the hatching of the first nestling, the egg that was incubated under a domestic fowl, pipped. It hatched 10 July. Unfortunately this nestling died after 6 days. The incubation period was 25 days instead of 28 to 30 days recorded in the literature. This is the first capttive breeding for this species.