Progress in fight to save "world's rarest bird"

(CBS News) An effort to rescue the "world's rarest bird" has enjoyed a success with the hatching of 18 Madagascar pochards - ducklings which now make up about a third of the entire global population, according to the BBC.

The pochards were thought to have been extinct until a small number were found still surviving at an isolated lake in Madagascar in 2006. In 2009, the BBC says 20 eggs were removed and incubated under controlled circumstances - away from the pond's predators, which include crocodiles.

Now, the second generation of pochards has been born in captivity, raising the overall population of the animals, which mature into beautiful brown birds with striking white eyes, to about 60.

The Wildfowl and Wetland Trust, a British charity group which has played a key role in the effort to bring the pochard population back from the brink of extinction, calls the pochards the most endangered bird in the world, and stresses that their work is far from finished.

The hope is that at least some members of this second generation of captive-bred pochards can be released back into the wild sometime in 2013.

Click on the player below to see a video by the WWT looking at the challenging mission to rescue the Madagascar pochards.