{"id":378413,"date":"2010-03-01T18:00:41","date_gmt":"2010-03-01T23:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c630a53ef01310f4f2ea7970c"},"modified":"2010-03-01T17:58:54","modified_gmt":"2010-03-01T22:58:54","slug":"afghan-government-moves-to-protect-newly-discovered-population-of-large-billed-reed-warbler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/378413","title":{"rendered":"Afghan government moves to protect newly-discovered population of large-billed reed warbler"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Large-billed<\/img><\/p>\n

KABUL, Afghanistan\u00a0— Afghanistan’s fledging conservation agency moved Sunday to protect one of the world’s rarest birds after the species was rediscovered in the war-ravaged country’s northeast<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The remote Pamir Mountains are the only known breeding area of the large-billed reed warbler<\/a>, a species so elusive that it had been documented only twice before in more than a century.<\/p>\n

A researcher with the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society<\/a> stumbled upon the tiny, olive-brown bird during a wildlife survey in 2008 and taped its distinctive song. Later, a research team caught and released 20 of the birds — the largest number ever recorded.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Afghanistan’s National Environment Protection Agency added the large-billed reed warbler to its list of protected species, which was established only last year.<\/p>\n

Mustafa Zahir, the agency’s director-general, acknowledged the difficulties of trying to protect wildlife in a country preoccupied with the Taliban insurgency. On Friday, suicide attackers killed at least 16 people in Kabul<\/a>, the capital, and thousands of Afghan and NATO forces are fighting to root out the hard-line Islamists from their southern stronghold. <\/p>\n

But Zahir, who is the grandson of Afghanistan’s former king, said the discovery of the large-billed reed warbler provided some welcome positive news.<\/p>\n

"It is not true that our country is full of only bad stories," Zahir said. "This bird, after so many years, has been discovered here. Everyone thought it was extinct."<\/p>\n

The bird’s discovery in Afghanistan kicked off a small flurry in conservation circles.<\/p>\n

The large-billed reed warbler was first documented in India in 1867 but wasn’t found again until 2006 — with a single bird in Thailand. The Pamir Mountains, in the sparsely populated Badakhshan province near China, is now home to the world’s only known large population of the bird.<\/p>\n

The Afghan environmental agency also added 14 other species to the protected list on Sunday. It now includes 48 species, including the rare snow leopard<\/a>, the Asiatic cheetah<\/a> and the markhor<\/a>, a type of wild goat with large spiral horns<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While conservation efforts are in their infancy in Afghanistan, there have been some recent successes. Authorities in Badakhshan last week seized a snow leopard from villagers who had trapped it and planned to sell it. The snow leopard — one of an estimated 150 left in the wild — will be freed once its injuries from the trap are healed, Zahir said.<\/p>\n

— Associated Press<\/p>\n

Stay up-to-date on animal news: Follow Unleashed on Facebook<\/a> and Twitter<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Photo: A large-billed reed warbler is shown in an undated file photo released by the Wildlife Conservation Society.\u00a0Credit: Associated Press<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KABUL, Afghanistan\u00a0— Afghanistan’s fledging conservation agency moved Sunday to protect one of the world’s rarest birds after the species was rediscovered in the war-ravaged country’s northeast. The remote Pamir Mountains are the only known breeding area of the large-billed reed warbler, a species so elusive that it had been documented only twice before in more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4172,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-378413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4172"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378413\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}