The Dragon Bird { Green Peafowls

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Dragoncollectiverangemapjpg.png

Collective Range Map of Green Peafowl, Black Dots represent breeding populations. Grey spots represent historic sightings within the 19th and 20th centuries. Empty circles represent populations that have been extinct since the 20th century.

Mr. Deerman,
We would all prefer to see photos that have not been altered. That said, captive birds tend to look more like domestic poultry than wild species for obvious reasons. High definition digital photography is closer to life than you may suspect. Photography has come a long way over the last few years.
I'm a scientist who's dedicated over twenty years of my life to the conservation of green peafowl. Much of this difficult work has taken place in the molecular laboratory. The foundation of this research began in the native haunts of green peafowl where I've studied them exhaustively in nature. If you take the time to read these threads you may also note that my colleagues (who are not writing on public forums because they believe aviculture is equally culpable in the extirpation of green peafowl as overhunting and habitat destruction) and myself have collected thousands of photos of skins of birds collected throughout the natural ranges of green peafowl from as early as the 18th century. I've been posting photos of these skins regularly on this forum over the last few weeks. It's my personal if often indefensible position that aviculture can contribute to the conservation of an endangered species. I invite you to read entire threads including hyperlinks so that you might comprehend the crisis of green peafowl conservation and the true significance of highly fragmented populations, which are, not incidentally readily distinguishable by their molecular biology. These populations are also separated by hundreds if not thousands of miles. They exist in complete genetic isolation. When wildlife agencies of the different countries seize wildlife contraband, green peafowl feathers/skins, leopard and tiger skins for example, tissue data is sent to molecular laboratories where it is determined just where the creature was poached illegally. This is why we have been building a genetic database of green peafowl for more than a decade now.

Many people confuse artificially selected mutations and domestic breeds for naturally selected wild species.

This thread was created for students of evolutionary biology and those people that want to learn about the evolutionary history of green peafowl, including their fossil history, molecular diversification and biogeography. Do you have a question that I may help you with?
 
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When I was hired as a curatorial intern at the WCS I convinced the zoo administrators to add Green Peafowl to their collection. There had been no Green Peafowl in the park since the days of William Beebe, when he brought Green Peafowl from Malaysia to the Bronx Zoo in the early 1900's.

I hatched and reared Edua two years before I started working for the WCS. Edua's sire's lineage had been in my collection since the mid-80's. That stock was a direct import from Yangoon Zoo in Burma. Ernie West kept most of the imported stock for me with some birds going to Al Hinkle. Ernie fell ill and most of my imported stock was stolen from his property. Some of it was tracked down and recovered. Edua's father was representative of this irreplaceable stock.

Once my employment began I sent for Edua and "Maybe" a female whose sex was hard to determine. The department's ornithology keepers introduced the peafowl to the Jungleworld Exhibit where they lived for many years. Green Peafowl have been kept in the Jungle World Exhibit ever since.
 
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ok let get the facts ..........most of your birds are in zoo or other people hands......so who take care of these birds. not you. how about pics of your pens and birds you have on hand now.

Sorry copy and paste don't work for me.......Google must be your best friend. How can you help me, show me the greens you have now, not ones other people have. thats like me posting pics of people birds they got from me how they have taking care of them..will show in their pics..not the fact i had them at one time.

I would like to know how much better your birds look with the way YOU feed them. what size of your breeding pens, share you info you had with the birds ,not how everyone else did. Reason i say this is you keep posting on how much better your birds look because the way you feed them.
 
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Great work MinxFox......i also notice that those pics are copy right also....which mean they should have not been postede onj this forum.....

...............things that make you say hummmmmm
 
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What does this have to do with the topic of Green Peafowl forms? This thread is not about nutrition or husbandry or about me, though you keep trying to make it about me. It's about wild populations of green peafowl. Stick to the subject please. You made a statement regarding different forms of green peafowl being comparable to domestic mutations of swap meet peacocks. I gently pushed back against your misunderstanding and substantiated my assertions with more facts in a non-ambiguous or incendiary manner.

I asked if there was a specific question I could help you with regarding wild forms of Green Peafowl or their natural history. You send this non-starter, once again, insinuating, projecting- drama creation.

I manage zoological collections Deerman and have for nearly twenty years-all around the world- including my own private zoo. Rare and endangered animals deserve to live in complex habitats, vast, well-planted enclosures. I help design those enclosures. I also contribute towards the design of the species action plans for each of these enormous naturalistic enclosures- which species will be kept in these exhibits and how they will be managed, including their nutrition and veterinary care. I'm baffled how this is so difficult for you to comprehend. I've lost count with how many zoos public or private use my nutrition products- but again, this has nothing to do with this thread!

Why is this a greater than lesser than issue with you? Birds photographed in the wild look better than captive ones because they are living as nature intended- they're probably in more ideal light and they are the product of countless generations of natural selection. They only eat what nature intended. The assumption that all these photos of wild birds are altered (not that anyone actually uses adobe photo shop anymore_) to somehow look better than your captive stock is - well it's silly. There's no comparison. How could there be?

You want this to be about my personal collection? This is not about my personal collection. It's about the evolutionary history and diversification of Green Peafowl forms.
This isn't a competition or a beauty pageant. Can we just stay on topic?
 
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Great work MinxFox......i also notice that those pics are copy right also....which mean they should have not been postede onj this forum.....

...............things that make you say hummmmmm

Frank Lin posts here as Franky. I bloody well sent him to take the photos. He has given me express permission to use them I can assure you. Stop your insinuations and stay on topic.
But really what you really want is to further derail the thread and have it closed. So here you have it. You win deerman. Please continue educating the forum with whatever it is that you have to share. Anyone looking for real information, educational material that they can write a paper on or learn further from you have loads of information here and know where to find me.
 
I'm sorry to hear that Edua passed away
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And deerman, I agree with Resolution, stay on topic... We're discussing the taxonomy and populations of Green Peafowl not husbandry, Resolution's collection and whatnot!
 
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The beautiful images of the greens are fantastic, Resolution, & the most recent of "Edua", I loved seeing.
You have provided an insite & information to the greens that we cannot get anywhere else. Thank You - Hope you continue. Yes sir, 1,000s of others are reading the comunication posts, with Clinton9, and Franky, & we appreciate them.

I have a question for you & you colleagues. Are, or were there peafowl in Papau New Gineau? I worked on a geological mapping project for that area some years back, but didnt get to travel there. Sorry if I got off topic.
again, thank you for the maps you have included in your postings about another part of the world most of us will never see.
 

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