After a comeback from the brink of extinction, Japan's crested ibis is being prepared to be reintroduced into the wild in four years, an official said.
The bird -- with its snowy, pink-tinged feathers, red face and sloping black beak -- was once a common sight in rice paddies all over the country and a favorite of scroll painters. But by the late 1990s, there was only one known survivor, kept at the Sado Crested Ibis Preservation Center on Sado Island, Niigata Prefecture.
Now numbering 25, the ibises may be turned loose on the secluded island in the Sea of Japan as early as 2007, after they have learned to build nests and hunt for themselves, center spokeswoman Hiroko Nakagawa said. By then, researchers aim to have bred about 100 birds.