Tropical birds find a new home in the Gobi Desert
Print Edition
Yang Hui was happy to show a basket of six eggs to visitors to his peafowl farm in the Gobi Desert.
“These eggs are laid by blue peafowl which are native to India and Sri Lanka. Each nutritious egg is worth nearly 100 yuan (US$16) and our supply can’t meet demand,” said Yang, deputy general manager of the China Peafowl Park in northwest China’s Gansu Province.
Yang says the park in the city of Jiayuguan, is the largest in Asia and last year he sold more than 10,000 eggs. Each peahen only lays about 25 eggs each year.
The park also sold over 1,000 live birds and countless tail feathers.
“Individual breeding centers, zoos and private businessmen buy most of the live peacocks, a symbol of good fortune and well-being,” Yang said.
Since the late 1990s, the exotic poultry business, including peacocks and pheasants, has boomed in northern China. The park, which has more than 30,000 birds, attracted nearly 800,000 visitors and made over 40 million yuan last year.
“We chose this bird because it is completely legal to own, breed and and trade, and the market is very profitable,” he says.
Things did not go entirely smoothly at the beginning. The biggest problem was hatching the eggs. Captive bred peacocks don’t incubate their own eggs, so ordinary chickens were used, but the hens have since been replaced by incubators.
Another problem was disease. More than 1,000 birds died one night in 2009, attributed to lack of experience and poor disease control measures.
How birds native to tropical forests would survive in the Gobi Desert was a worry. Soil was strewn on top of rocks and grasses and trees planted to make birds feel at home and their sheds are heated to help them survive the cold.
Yang said: “I hope more people will come and see these beautiful birds. If they can survive in this tough environment, so can we.”
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