Pheasants: Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan ... - IUCN

high input in terms of the recruitment, training, and
remuneration of staff to police the area and monitor the
effectiveness of their actions.
Encouraging sustainable use: it seems obvious that all
hunting activities will reduce populations in the wild, but
they will only do so significantly if the resulting harvest is
substantial and consists of birds that would not have died
in the wild from some other cause within an equivalent
time period. Intensive research on native and introduced
species of Galliformes that are hunted widely for sport in
Europe and North America has now shown that, in these
circumstances, many of them have the capacity to increase
their reproductive output whilst suffering reduced levels
of mortality from other causes, thereby compensating for
the losses caused by hunting itself (Potts 1987, Aebischer
1997b).
The underlying processes involved are known to be
density-dependent; that is, the lowering of population
density by hunting reduces the effects of intraspecific
competition and results in increased reproductive success
and survival for the birds that remain. Under natural
conditions, this mechanism allows populations to recover
from catastrophic reductions, whilst also limiting their
maximum densities to levels that match the capacity of the
environment to support them. It is likely that most pheasant
species and populations exhibit such density-dependent
responses, although for species with comparatively low
reproductive capacities and high annual survival rates
(e.g., peacock-pheasants, great argus) it seems prudent to
assume no strong density-dependence, and thus little or no
real capacity to compensate for hunting (N.J. Aebischer
pers. comm.).
What constitutes a sustainable level of harvesting in a
particular case depends on many interacting factors and
will generally not be predictable with much confidence in
advance. It is, therefore, vital that any trials of sustainable
use schemes are properly monitored through some
programme of standard, repeated population counts. In
this way, hunting quotas can be adjusted up or down
according to the observed capacity of the population to
persist with certain levels of offtake. Local people should
be able to derive long-term sustenance, economic gain, and
other benefits from the birds. In some circumstances,
pheasant populations may actually benefit from sustainable
harvesting because the potential economic benefits arising
from this may provide the incentive for habitat improvement
work designed to increase population levels and allow an
even greater sustainable yield; this is the so called “paradox
of wise use” (Aebischer 1997b, Simiyu 1998).
It should be stressed that habitat modification for this
purpose is likely to have unpredictable effects on other
species in the ecosystem. If other threatened species seem
likely to be adversely affected, there may be a case for
conducting a formal impact assessment before implementing
any habitat management changes. In any case, the detection
of unpredictable side effects requires a comprehensive
monitoring programme to be put in place prior to the
implementation of any management innovations.
Both copper and ring-necked pheasants are native to
Japan, where they are heavily hunted and bred in captivity
for release. Relatively little seems to be known about the
ecological requirements of these species in Japan, where
capitalising on the paradox of wise use must be a real
possibility. Such evidence as there is suggests that the
copper pheasant has declined quite dramatically
(Yamashina 1976, Maru 1980, Brazil 1991).
Sustainable use is very a much part of the IUCN ethos
and the SSC has, therefore, set up a Sustainable Use
Initiative (SUI), which should be used as a source of advice
in this area (see Appendix 2 for contacts).
Maintaining ex situ populations: the zoo community has
always viewed its captive populations as having much
broader utility than simply the means to provide captivereared
animals for re-introductions (Tonge and Wilkinson
1998). For instance, they offer material for physiological,
genetic, and behavioural research that is not practical with
wild individuals, but which may nevertheless be of benefit
in the conservation of populations in situ. Zoo animals are
no longer regarded as curiosities provided for public
entertainment, but rather as part of well-informed and
attractive exhibits designed to raise conservation
awareness. This is particularly effective when they are
sited within the geographical range of a threatened species.
Good examples of this are the large, well-planted, and
multi-lingual exhibits of Vietnamese and Edwards’s
pheasants at Hanoi Zoo (H. Assink pers. comm.).
In recent years, WPA has begun to re-assess the roles
of captive populations. Its private breeders started the
first regional Galliformes studbooks in 1992, joining the
European zoo community to form the joint GalliTAG
(Galliformes Taxon Advisory Group) in 1994. That joint
arrangement continues today within the European
Endangered Species Programme Galliformes TAG, with
both private breeders and institutions working together to
conserve pheasants in captivity. The Malaysian
Department of Wildlife and National Parks formed the
Pheasant Breeding Centre at Sungkai in the early 1980s,
and has used this establishment to retain gene pools of
endemic species and set up breeding groups in the UK and
USA. A further centre is under construction in Johore
State, which will provide stock for re-introduction
programmes. Zoo Malacca is now under the control of the
Wildlife Department and open to the general public as an
education and research centre. In some circumstances, it is
also possible for a captive breeding centre to have a
substantial role in preventing an international market
from developing for live birds illegally taken from the wild
(Tonge and Wilkinson 1998).
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