“The Little Bustard, a heavy-bodied grassland bird native to Eurasia, is making a comeback in Kyrgyzstan after it was nearly extirpated during the Soviet period,” reports The Doomslayer.
BirdGuides explains:
Having been listed as nationally extinct as recently as 2006, the Little Bustard has made an outstanding recovery in Kyrgyzstan, with current estimates putting its nesting population as large as 1,900 individuals.
Ornithologists had previously considered the species lost in the country, with its status declared extinct in the Red Book of Kyrgyzstan in 2006. However, as reported by Ornithomedia, recent surveys have revealed that a breeding population in the Chuy and Talas valleys holds between 1,400 and 1,900 individuals.
The species’ decline began in the Soviet era, largely driven by agricultural intensification and habitat loss from the 1950s onward. By the 1970s, only a few residual groups remained in non-cultivated steppe areas near the Kazakh border, particularly in Chuy and Talas…
Kyrgyzstan is the world’s fourth most mountainous country, with an average elevation of over 8,600 feet. It is located in a remote region of Central Asia.
The near-extinct Siberian crane has made a comeback, and now numbers about 7,000 individuals.
Brazil’s rarest parrots have come back from the edge of extinction.
“China’s population of the Baer’s Pochard, a critically endangered diving duck, has more than doubled to 2,555, up from roughly 1,000 in 2012,” reports China Daily.
Blue iguanas, once on the brink of extinction, have risen in number from fewer than 25 in 2002 to over 1,200 today.
Snub-nosed monkeys have made a comeback in the mountains of China.
Amur leopards are making a comeback in Russia’s far east.
Bobcats recently returned to New Jersey after being absent from the state for 50 years.
The snow leopard population has doubled in Kazakhstan, China’s vast neighbor in Central Asia.
A giant fish believed to be extinct was found in the Mekong River.
The saiga antelope has been brought back from the brink of extinction in Kazakhstan.
