<Anchor>



Spoonbill is an endangered species with only about 6,000 left in the world.

A few years ago, we rescued a spoonbill egg that was almost submerged in water and artificially hatched it and sent it back to nature, but it was found that it is adapting well in the breeding ground.



Reporter Lee Yong-shik covered the story.



<Reporter>



It is an uninhabited island about 1km away from Ganghwado, Incheon.



The rocky island is full of white birds.



Spoonbill, a first-class endangered species and a natural monument.



Inside the nest built on the rock, fluffy young cubs are growing, and a tracking device is attached to check their survival.



[Lee Ki-seop / Dr. Korea Waterfowl Network: You can also find the survival rate and know where you are going.]



Some nests at the bottom of the island close to the sea are inevitably submerged in the water at high tide.



Enlarging an image


[Hwang Jong-gyeong / Full-time researcher, National Institute of Ecology: About 80% of the total area is submerged in water, and at this time, an average of 10 spoonbill nests and 20 eggs were confirmed to be lost due to submersion.]



The National Institute of Ecology in May 2019 You rescued 10 Spoonbill Eggs from this island.



The chicks hatched out of the incubator and finally succeeded in raising four.



A year later, the spoonbills returned to nature near their nesting grounds.



One out of four died, three survived, and two were captured by unmanned sensor cameras at the breeding grounds for the second year.



The other one was observed in a rice paddy near Cheonsu Bay in the West Sea last May.



About 6,100 Spoonbills live in the world, and 90% of the breeding individuals are breeding on 22 uninhabited islands along the west coast of Korea, including Incheon.



The habitat has been pushed to an uninhabited island due to tidal flat reclamation and development, but even that is unsafe due to the risk of submersion.



The National Institute of Ecology has decided to continue conservation activities to monitor the spoonbill population and improve the habitat environment.



(Video coverage: Ho-Jun Choi, screen provided: National Institute of Ecology)