Crossposted from clari.world.asia.vietnam Subject: Extinct pheasant found in Vietnam Date: Wed, 4 Sep 1996 5:30:28 PDT HANOI, Sept. 4 (UPI) -- Vietnamese villagers searching for dinner instead caught a pheasant species endemic to Vietnam but thought to be ecologically extinct, the World Wide Fund for Nature said Wednesday. A male and female pair of Edwards pheasants (Lophura edwardsi) were captured by villagers in a remote area of central Vietnam, the firsttime live specimens have been collected since 1928. The pheasants were destined for the soup pot before local foresters working with the WWF intervened. The Edwards pheasants were already considered rare when French ornithologist Jean Delacour brought 15 of them back to Paris for the first time in 1923. ``This is yet another feather in the cap of conservation in Vietnam,'' said Dawood Ghaznavi, Asia Pacific program director at WWF International in Switzerland. ``Rediscovering this pheasant after 70 years means mankind has a second chance to save this exquisite bird and its habitat.'' The birds were found near Bach Ma National Park in Thua Thien-Hue Province, the only protected area in the country where the Edwards pheasant, which needs wet forest land, was thought could exist. A popular summer resort during the French colonial period, Bach Ma harbors six out of 12 pheasant species in Vietnam. Three previous scientific expeditions, conducted between 1988 and 1944, failed to find or even sight the Edwards but the search was renewed after villagers in the area reported they exist. Together with local forest authorities, the WWF said it now plans to increase the number and training of forest guards in the area and to launch a public awareness campaign to help the pheasants survive in the wild. The original collection of Edwards pheasants brought to France has grown to several hundred among private breeders in Europe, David Hulse, WWF's representative in Hanoi, said. However, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to use this population to reintroduce the species in Vietnam because the ``endemic knowledge'' would have been bred out of them after many generations in captivity, he said. The 22,000 hectare Bach Ma was severely damaged by defoliants sprayed during the Vietnam War post-war logging but in recent years there have been some reforestation efforts. A recent WWF-sponsored survey, conducted by the Vietnam-Russian Tropical Center, identified 176 species of butterflies, several that are thought to be new to science, Hulse said. Two new large mammals and a fresh water fish have been discovered in Vietnam in recent years. A third new large mammal was discovered in Vietnam's central highlands about a year ago by German scientists but they were only able to find old skulls, suggesting the creature was already extinct, Hulse said. Sent to AVSL-L by: "'C.Michele' Claudia Michele Thompson"