According to Li Xiaomin, an expert with the Animal Resources Institute of the Northeast China Forestry University, no traces of the bird were found in the last three nationwide censuses of the country's wildlife.

As a second-grade state-protected animal particularly found in Heilongjiang Province, northeast China, lagopus was occasionally spotted in the northern areas of the Dahinggan Mountains and the bushes along the Heilong River basin.

Though having a natural camouflage capacity for blending with different colored feathers according to the change of seasons, it seems the bird didn't manage to escape extinction, Li said.

China organized two large-scale wildlife censuses in 1970s and 1980s. The latest one was finished in 2000. No tracks or specimens of lagopus were collected in any of the three censuses.

Li speculated that over-lumbering of forests and rapid population growth are two possible causes leading to the disappearance of the rare bird.

The over-development of virgin forests in the Dahinggan and Xiaohinggan mountains have endangered many types of birds living there.

Li disclosed that over a dozen categories of birds in Heilongjiang are on the brink of extinction or have already disappeared.

Tetrao parvirostris, another type of bird once inhabiting the north Dahinggan Mountains, sustained a sharp decrease in number since the end of the 1980s, while falcipennis, another type birds found in cold areas, is already extinct in China.

If the virgin forests in China's northern areas can be restored, it's still possible for some of the small number of lagopus currently remaining in Russia to relocate in China, Li said.

(Xinhua News Agency April 19, 2003)