This's a love story between a Bar-headed Goose & a home goose. A baby hybrid Bar-headed Goose was hatched in #CCAfa at Tangshan by artificial incubation. Its father is a wild Bar-headed Goose; its mother is a common domestic goose (Anser cygnoides Linn. var domestica). They fell in love and produced some hybrid eggs and later hatched under great care by Zhiwei Tian, director of the Community Conservation Area for Waterfowls at Tangshan.
The wild Bar-headed goose was rescued by Tian in 2014. Tian tried to send the migratory bird back to wild and drove 2000km to Qinghai in an effort to help it to catch its family flock. Efforts failed, the Bar-headed Goose later became a "resident" in Tian's #CCAfa located in Hebei Province, and felt in love with the white-colored home goose.
As an experienced bird expert, the #CCAfa director took great care of their fertilized eggs and hatched a couple successfully. It's not a easy task. The babies, from a genetic conservation perspective, is of great significance. Usually, there's reproductive isolation between different species and no hybridization. This baby bird is a magic.
In Oct 31, Dr Bradnee Chambers, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Migratory Species, visited the #CCAfa accompanied by my CBCGDF colleagues.