The Babbler 42 - July 2012
regional news
Edwards’s Pheasant declines to Critically Endangered As part of BirdLife’s 2012 update of the IUCN Red List for birds, the conservation status of 190 species was revised. Amongst these was Edwards’s Pheasant Lophura edwardsi whose conservation status has declined from Endangered to Critically Endangered (CE) and may be extinct in the wild. I had been making the case that this restricted-range, Vietnamese insular endemic had been in serious decline, based on the lack of recent records in an ever declining area of increasingly fragmented forest patches for sometime already and welcome this reassessment of its conservation status, which should draw more attention to its plight and the need for conservation action. The invalidation of Lophura hatinhensis as a taxon will also help focus attention on Edwards’s Pheasant, and this remains to be done.
Lack of field evidence There has been no reliable sighting of L. edwardsi in the wild since a sereis of sightings during a BirdLife survey in 1994 in the Khe Net watershed on the border between Ha
Stamp of Edwards’s Pheasant produced in Vietnam
Tinh and Quang Binh provinces. Since then there has been extensive field surveys udertaken throughout the known range of Edwards’s Pheasant by experienced observers. In 2011 BirdLife and the World Pheasant Association mounted extensive camera trapping at the “best probable” sites within the known range (Dakrong Nature Reserve) and did not record the species because of very high trapping pressure of all terrestrial vertebrates at the visited sites
Lack of taxonomic clarity The issue of the real number of endemic Lophura pheasants in the Annamese Lowlands of central Vietnam underpins the whole issue and total clarity is still lacking partly because of BirdLife International’s continued treatment of “L. hatinhensis” as a good species (thankfully L. imperialis has already been invalidated). In my view “L. hatinhensis” is a genetically mutant form of L. edwardsi. This is supported strongly by the morphological and distributional evidence. Male “L. hatinhensis” differs only from male L. edwardsi by having a variable number of randomly distributed white feathers in the tail, and sometimes elsewhere on the body. The females are indistinguishable as far as I can tell (despite brave past efforts to discern differences) . Hardly a strong basis upon which to describe a new species. “L. hatinhensis” has been recorded in Ha Tinh and Thua Tien - Hue Provinces, at either end of the range of L. edwardsi. And in the case of the latter, within the known geographic range of L. edwardsi. A single good record (verified by Le Trong Trai and I) in Thua Thien - Hue province strongly indicates a mutant origin (although does not rule out sympatry). The type description of “L. hatinhensis” was brief, published in a book and not subjct ot peer review.
populations of L. edwardsi which are a consequence of extensive deforestation and fragmentation within its range. (The male “L. hatinensis” in Thua Tien- Hue was observed with a flock of chickens and caught in the rafters of a house! The surrounding “forest” consisted of exotic pine and acacia!). So the existence of “L. hatinhensis” tells us that L. edwardsi is in extreme danger of extinction and has been for some considerable time. Moving on to consider, a taxon now considered invalid by BirdLife International because of its hybrid origin. Why would L. edwardsi hybridise with L. nycthmera to produce L. imperialis under wild conditions? Surely this would only happen if there were insufficient L. edwardsi in the population for them to meet naturally? This behaviour is well documented in wild bird populations. Consider the behaviour of the last wild Spix Macaw for example. So again, the existence of L. imperialis should be a red flag for conservationists. The description of L. imperialis some 80 years ago tells us that L. edwardsi has been in grave trouble for the best part of a century already ----------Source: Jonathan C. Eames, BirdLife International in Indochina
Surely the evidence points to “L. hatinhensis” being a genetic mutant form of L. edwardsi? The mutation is occurring because of inbreeding depression in small, isolated 10