Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Videos of Pheasant Species

The following videos are of various pheasant species housed in zoos and private aviaries around the world (including a 3 part documentary on Formosan ring-necked pheasants in their natural habitat), posted on YouTube. [Videos by various contributers on YouTube].

Private aviaries in Europe and the USA have been keeping pheasants for more than a century. The pheasants were brought back from expeditions to Asia, and at that time were an awe-inspiring species. In more recent past, due to deforestation and over-hunting, the pheasants started becomming rarer in their natural habitats. The private aviaries (although themselves facing problems of inbreeding) became an important source of pheasants for conservation breeding projects by organisations like the IUCN partner World Pheasant Association.

Today, all the rare pheasant species housed in zoos and aviaries are recorded in Studbooks, and exchanged between countries for conservation breeding. In India, the pheasants are a protected species, and are only kept and reared in Government owned zoos.


Some of the species of pheasants are shown here.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2waNeMsqtXk&feature=player_embedded

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