There are fewer than 500 green peafowl remaining in the wild in China, according to a survey by the Kunming Institute of Sciences at the Chinese Academy of Sciences from 2013 to 2014.

Han Lianxin, a professor at Southwest Forestry University who carried out a survey about the bird in the 1990s, said their population was thought to be over 1,000 during that time but the number shrank by half in 2008.

In 2009, the bird was classified as globally “endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Nowadays, the bird endemic to the tropical climates of South and East Asia has already been driven to extinction in Malaysia, northern India, and Bangladesh. In China, their remaining habitats are in central and western Yunnan province.

The biggest threat to the green peafowl in China is the fragmentation of its habitat, according to Gu Bojian, a researcher at the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden and an expert on the green peafowl.

Gu said the significance of protecting the rare bird is not only because it’s vulnerable, but also because it lives in an ecosystem. By protecting the bird, other species that live with it will also be saved, he explained.

For instance, by protecting giant pandas in Sichuan, other animals such as leopards, golden cats, and gorillas as well as a variety of plants that help pandas are protected, Gu noted.

Bird experts discovered a new habit for green peafowl in Yunnan during a survey in 2016. However, the construction of a hydropower dam near a nature reserve of green peafowl scheduled to be completed within two to three years may flood more low altitude forest areas, including some habits of the green peafowl.

Han thinks the construction of the dam should be suspended until a detailed survey and evaluation is done to find out how many rare animals and plants are living there.

The survey should also have clearly account for how many habits of green peafowl are near the construction site so that effective measures can be taken to protect the bird, Han said.

The plight of the green peafowl is an issue that has been raised in China. In June this year, billboard posters about the bird were posted on advertising spaces for the first time in a number of Beijing’s subway stations.