By Daniel Lebbin May 25,
2016
High in the Santa Marta Mountains
of Colombia in early 2015, two guards from Fundación ProAves' El Dorado
Reserve found the Blue-bearded Helmetcrest, a hummingbird nobody
had seen for 69 years. The rediscovery of such lost birds is not as
infrequent as one might guess. Finding them, as other ABC-funded expeditions
have done in the past with the Pale-headed
Brush Finch and other birds, can be vital to their
conservation. It's hard to protect birds if you don't know where they live.
The International Union for
Conservation of Nature currently ranks at least 24
species in the Americas as threatened even though the species have no known
individuals in the wild nor surviving in captivity. Most of these species
should probably be considered extinct. But some may still persist, living in
areas that are difficult to search and where few people go.
To untangle this mystery and
determine if the birds are still out there—and therefore deserving of our
conservation attention—ABC is mobilizing resources and partners to conduct
searches for some of South America's lost birds. We're starting with three: the
Tachira Antpitta, the Turquoise-throated Puffleg, and the Kinglet Calyptura.
No comments:
Post a Comment