Shimla, July 14 - Call it a feather in the cap of the Himachal Pradesh forest department, which has once again managed to breed Western Tragopan - a critically endangered bird - in captivity.

'This time we have succeeded again in breeding the highly endangered Western Tragopan in captivity. This has occurred for the third consecutive year,' divisional forest officer (DFO) K. Thrimul told IANS. He is in charge of Sarahan Pheasantry, 160 km from Shimla.

The tragopan, the state bird, is a brilliantly coloured Asian pheasant found at an altitude of 2,000 to 3,600 metres in temperate forests of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

'This season 24 eggs were laid, of which two eggs have been hatched so far. One chick was born last month. It is healthy and growing normally. The second one was born last week, but died soon after its birth,' he said.

Funded by the Central Zoo Authority, the department started the captive breeding of the tragopan at Sarahan in 2002 under the guidance of conservation breeding expert John Corder of the World Pheasants Association.

Breeding the shy tragopan in captivity is a herculean task. It is listed as 'critically endangered' in the Red Data Book of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a compendium of species facing extinction.

The tragopan breeding project got a boost when the birds laid eight eggs in 2007 and all survived. Last year two chicks were bred.

'This season the egg laying (24 eggs) was maximum, but hatching has been poor so far because the weather is too hot and humid,' Thrimul added.

The pheasantry has nine Western Tragopan pairs and four chicks.