By MARGARET WONG, Associated Press Writer
HONG KONG--Camouflaged
amid reeds and sedges, environmental workers quietly gaze upon
a rare sight: dozens of black-faced spoonbills napping in the
morning after feeding on fish and shrimp at dawn.
When the large
white birds with black faces and feet wake up, they wade in shallow
water or tideland, swinging their long flat spoon-shaped bills
left and right as they look for another catch in one of the few
remaining areas of Hong Kong untouched by development.
"The
birds are so cute, and the sight is so spectacular and shocking,
as if we were back in the primitive world -like 'Jurassic Park,"'
said Brian Ching, a local photographer who got to go along and
watch the birds in Hong Kong's Mai Po nature reserve.
Congestion
and pollution are major problems in Hong Kong, to be sure, but
experts say the rural environment here remains more benign than
neighboring parts of Asia where many migrating birds encounter
even more disruption from overbuilding, foul air and filthy water.
Thus, the
endangered black-faced spoonbills are increasingly finding Hong
Kong a good place to stop in their annual migration south from
the Korean Peninsula and parts of mainland China.
"Although
the environmental pressure in Hong Kong is high, the birds are
like refugees -they have nowhere to go except squeezing themselves
into crowded places here," said Ng Cho-nam, a conservationist
and University of Hong Kong professor.
In nearby
mainland China, the birds can end up on the dinner table.
Gao Yu-ren,
a Chinese researcher at South China Institute of Endangered Animals,
cared last month for a black-faced spoonbill seized by police
from a bird market in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province.
The immature
bird, with a dark reddish orange bill and black feathers on the
outer edge of its wings, was kept in a tiny cage and priced at
200 yuan (U.S. $24.20) for anybody wanting a luxury dinner.
Gao kept the
frightened bird for a few days then released it into the wild.
"People
here are looking for food from the wild because they say the domestic
livestock and birds raised with artificial feeds are not tasty,"
Gao said.
In the Hong
Kong nature reserve, officials spotted 252 black-faced spoonbills
one day this season, compared with a high count of 164 last year.
The experts
aren't sure whether the surge in Hong Kong sightings -which equals
more than a third of the estimated world population of just 700
-is due to more birds surviving or the fact that they're trying
to avoid greater problems, man-made or natural, elsewhere.
The Mai Po
Inner Deep Bay is considered an important wetland -but like many
waters around Hong Kong, it's marred by pollution, much of it
coming from the nearby Chinese industrial city of Shenzhen, Ng
said.
It is also
disturbed by frequent intrusions of illegal mainland Chinese fishermen,
said Tsim Siu-tai, an official with the Hong Kong Agriculture,
Fisheries and Conservation Department.
One black-faced
spoonbill died early last year from swallowing a fishhook, the
government said.
The birds
are seeing their habitat vanish in mainland China -a pattern that
has repeated itself across Asia for other migrating birds as humans
developed large areas of Taiwan, Japan and North and South Korea.
"The
number of migrating birds has been decreasing, largely because
of the decrease in swamps," said Kim Jin-han, a researcher
at the National Institute of Environmental Research in Seoul,
South Korea. "Like in most other countries in the world,
much of our swamps have been destroyed by development."
An interim
report by Japan's Environment Agency, released in March 1999,
said that birds spending summers in Japan such as the Kentish
plover and thick billed shrike are finding fewer places to live
than they were during a 1978 survey.
"The
change in distribution for birds that spend summer in Japan is
perhaps due to a significant change in our environment,"
said Masae Narusue, a researcher with the Wild Bird Society of
Japan.
The black-faced
spoonbills spend their summers in breeding grounds in the demilitarized
zone of the Korean Peninsula and Changshan Island in mainland
China's Liaoning Province. When they fly south, about two-thirds
of them end up in Taiwan's Tsengwen estuary, which is far from
secure against human intrusion.
Liu Liang-li,
a researcher for Taiwan's Black-faced Spoonbill Conservation Association,
said a planned heavy industrial development -Pinnan Industrial
Complex -will pose an indirect yet worrying threat to the neighboring
692 -acre prime roosting site on the island's west coast.
Birdwatchers,
too, pose their own problems.
Every year,
some 200,000 people -photographers, tourists and students -visit
the estuary where no barriers are set up to isolate the birds
from the cheering crowds.
"They
are so scared and shy -they have to fly frequently between the
crowds on one side and the numerous fishermen on the other side,"
Liu said.
"We feel
so embarrassed," Liu said. "They are supposed to be
our guests."
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