The first ibis to be bred in captivity in Japan has been named "Yuu Yuu," Environment Agency chief Kenji Manabe said Friday.
Manabe announced the name at a Tokyo press conference after an agency-appointed committee, consisting of nature experts and an actress, considered submissions from elementary school students. After thumbing through dictionaries for 3 1/2 hours, the committee reduced the pool of potential names and finally settled on Yuu Yuu.
Written in Chinese characters, Yuu Yuu consists of one repeated character that means superior, excellent, gentle and kind, among other readings.
"I think the name is appropriate," said Manabe, who earlier said that he hoped the committee would come up with a name people could easily relate to.
The name Yuu Yuu was the most popular entry and chosen from 7,684 valid entries.
Six elementary schools in Sado, Niigata Prefecture -- close to where the ibis was born and is being raised -- and even a student from a Japanese school in Shanghai submitted the name.
Members of the selection committee said they chose the name to respect the wishes of the children, and because of the characters' meaning and ease of pronunciation.
But while the bird has a name, its sex is another matter. Environment Agency officials said it will take some time before they can determine whether Yuu Yuu is male or female.
The Japanese crested ibis is extinct in the Japanese wild, and Yuu Yuu is the offspring of two birds given to Japan from China last November to reintroduce the bird.
Yuu Yuu hatched on May 21 at the Crested Ibis Conservation Center in the village of Niibo on Niigata Prefecture's Sado Island. It has grown from an initial weight of 55 grams to 1.3 kg and should soon be able to fly.