Rare Bird Discovered in Pacific, Euthanized for ‘Collection’

Mon, 10/12/2015 - 10:59am

Seth Augenstein, Digital Reporter

Researchers were traveling through the dense forest of the Pacific island of Guadalcanal. They heard a familiar call, and they saw a bird with a blue and gold plumage. It was a bird Chris Filardi and his team had been searching for, for 20 years.

The scientists set up a net, trapping the Moustached Kingfisher – a “gorgeous, strong and raucous male.” They photographed it. Then they killed it – to “collect” it as a specimen.

In the days since the announcement of the discovery of the bird – the first-ever sighting of a male variety of the bird – there has been an outcry about the euthanizing of the bird. The response has been so intense that Filardi has responded at length to justify his collection of the “specimen,” through an Audubon Society publication.

“This was not a ‘trophy hunt,’” wrote Filardi, director of Pacific Programs for the American Museum of Natural History’s Center for Biodiversity and Conservation. “Collecting the kingfisher and other biological specimens were team decisions made in the broader context of this work. Nonetheless, I feel it is important for me to personally articulate why I collected this particular specimen.”

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Ghost' kingfisher rediscovered on south-west Pacific island

Posted on: 28 Sep 2015

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A male Guadalcanal Moustached Kingfisher has been photographed for the first-time ever on the Solomon Islands – the species had not seen since the 1950s.

Scientists in the remote highlands of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, have been on the island surveying the endemic biodiversity and working with local partners to create a protected area.

Chris Filardi, director of the project, wrote on his blog: "After several days of work, it is clear we are on the shores of an island in the sky. Species we encounter here are of two worlds – one that descends to the humid, coastal plain and another that rises into the cool, cloud-raked mountains of Tetena-Haiaja. Just as the white sands of an island beach divide land and sea, the ascending Chupukama ridge marks the transition from a world of known lowland organisms to a sky island filled with scientific mystery.

"In the western Pacific, first among these 'ghost species' is Moustached Kingfisher, a bird I have sought for nearly 20 years. Described by a single female specimen in the 1920s, two more females brought to collectors by local hunters in the early 1950s, and only glimpsed in the wild once. Scientists have never observed a male. Its voice and habits are poorly known. Given its history of eluding detection, realistic hopes of finding the bird were slim."

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