Crested Ibis Ecological Park 朱鹮生态园

About Crested Ibis Ecological Park

A Shaanxi provincial booking platform says the park was set up in 1990 and calls it the country's only base combining research, teaching, protection and public education for rescuing, keeping and breeding wild crested ibises, and also a comprehensive eco-tourism area combining nature protection, research, viewing and visiting. It gives the park as 1.5 hectares with 30 rearing cages, a wild-training net cage of 8,000 m² and 35 m high, and an education hall of more than 600 m², and says it has received more than half a million domestic and foreign visitors over the years.

On the access date the platform said the park kept more than 180 crested ibises and that the seven birds China gave to Japan and South Korea, including 友友 and 洋洋, all came from here. It describes the crested ibis as known colloquially as 朱鹭 and 红鹤, classed by the IUCN as critically endangered and a national first-class protected animal, and known as the 东方宝石.

A Xinhua photo feature sets the county context: each spring 洋县, known as 朱鹮之乡, has its crested ibis breeding season, and wild ibises building nests and feeding are seen in the rapeseed fields and woods around the villages near the 朱鹮人工繁育中心 of the 朱鹮国家级自然保护区. It records that in 1981 Chinese scientists found the world's last seven wild crested ibises in 洋县, and that over 45 years habitat restoration, artificial breeding and public participation together have produced clear results in protection and population growth.

The platform also prints the park's opening seasons, ticket prices, concession categories and visitor-conduct rules; that practical detail is outside this record's scope and none of it is carried into prose.

The sources used here do not say how the park relates to the county's nature reserve or to the wild population the Xinhua feature describes, and the platform's bird count comes from an undated page and may since have changed. The platform's 唯一 claim for the park is its own characterisation.

What to look for

• The rearing cages and the 8,000 m², 35-m-high wild-training net cage the platform records at the park.
• The crested ibises the park kept – more than 180 on the access date.
• The education hall of more than 600 m².
• In the surrounding county, the spring breeding season in the rapeseed fields and woods around the nature reserve's breeding centre that the Xinhua feature describes.

Location & getting there

Getting to Crested Ibis Ecological Park

Check the open visitor route and follow the site’s rules on distance, food and photography. Conservation areas may limit access beyond designated paths.

• Search for 朱鹮生态园 with 汉中市 and 洋县.