Biologist takes picture with rare bird, then kills it ‘for science’

[link to www.zmescience.com]


Chris Filardi, director of Pacific Programs at the American Museum of Natural History, was out in the Solomon Islands with other researchers surveying bird species. Eventually, Filardy heard the unmistakable call of the kingfisher, a bird so rare it’s often called ‘the ghost’. Seeing how this was the first male kingfisher reported by a scientist, Filardy reasoned that it was acceptable to dissect the animal. Other scientists disagree, and claim what Filardi did was unethical.

‘When I came upon the netted bird in the cool shadowy light of the forest I gasped aloud, “Oh my god, the kingfisher.” One of the most poorly known birds in the world was there, in front of me, like a creature of myth come to life. We now have the first photos ever taken of the bird, as well as the first definitive recordings of its unmistakable call,’ wrote Filardi in a post before eventually killing the creature.

These are the 1st-ever photos of a male moustached kingfisher! More on this “ghost” species: USE_FULL_LINK_PLEASE1bLrW7HpZZ pic.twitter.com/P879oQ4WaA

— AMNH (@AMNH) September 23, 2015

This caused a fury online, as conservationists voiced deep concerns that this was an utterly needless crime. In the meantime, scientists were debating whether killing animals for this kind of research – a practice performed since ancient times to this day – is necessary. Amidst the controversy, Filardi wrote a long blog post motivating his act explaining how the mustached kingfisher isn’t rare or in imminent danger of extinction (it’s just listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List), and how this “reflects standard practice for field biologists”.

“Our first full day in the field, we detected the Moustached Kingfisher by its unmistakable call. Over the next several days, we assessed the population of birds across the area where we were working most intensely, recording calls of individuals as well as numerous sightings along a ~2 km ridgeline transect ascending to the high central massif of Guadalcanal Island. During this survey work, we recorded several calling individuals in an area totaling about a square kilometer, estimating three pairs and possible offspring or social groupings (in one instance we detected three birds in a small forest glade).”

“The total land area of Guadalcanal is roughly 5300 square kilometers. If, conservatively, 15 percent of this area represents suitable habitat, and if we assume densities we encountered are on the high end, this gives a population estimate of over 4000 individuals, a robust number for a large island bird. Significantly, habitat in the documented elevation range of the Moustached Kingfisher (800 m to at least 1500 m) remains largely as it has been for centuries. Though sightings and information about the bird are rare in the ornithological community, the bird itself is not. Elders of the local land-owning tribe (now living at lower elevations) relate stories of eating Mbarikuku, the local name for the bird; our local partners knew it as unremarkably common. With a remote range so difficult to access, there has been a perception of rarity because so few outside people or scientists have seen or otherwise recorded the bird. As I wrote from the field, this is a bird that is poorly known and elusive to western science—not rare or in imminent danger of extinction. ”