Edwards's Pheasant - Lophura edwardsi - is endemic to the rainforests of Vietnam. It has red legs and facial skin. The male is mainly blue-black with a white crest, and the female is a drab brown bird.

The alarm call is a puk-puk-puk.

Edwards's Pheasant was first described in 1896 and remained virtually unknown until the 1920s. Although the species was described as locally common in the past, it has only ever been recorded from a few sites within a restricted range. Between 1930 and 1996 the species was assumed to be extinct, but surveys in the late 1990s suggested that the species survived in several sites in Quang Tri and Quang Binh Provinces. Since 2000, however, there have been no confirmed records of the species.

In April 2011 a team from WPA, including Research Associates from King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi, Thailand, undertook a training workshop for Vietnamese partners, including rangers from the Quang Tri Forest Protection Department. This workshop outlined methods for the survey of pheasants, such as the Edwards's Pheasant, which are difficult to observe using traditional bird survey techniques. The workshop concentrated on the design and implementation of camera-trap surveys that have become an important tool in determining the presence and abundance of shy and generally silent pheasant species.

The first phase of this survey has just been completed. Despite having photographed 26 species of birds and mammals, we have not yet managed to photograph the elusive Edwards's Pheasant. This failure to find Edwards's Pheasant in this relatively undisturbed forest adds to our concerns about the survival of this species in the wild. There was some encouraging news, though, because members of the local community indicated that they had encountered the species recently in the forest. The team needs additional funding to allow more teams to survey this and other forest sites in central Vietnam.

There has not been an extinction of a pheasant species in Asia since 1600, let's hope that Edwards's is not the first to become extinct.