Scientist Takes First-Ever Photo of Rare Bird…then Snuffs It for Science

Intense After days of tracking, he and his colleagues actually captured a male moustached kingfisher in a mist net!

“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.” Filardi wrote in a Sept. 23 blog post.

The team snapped the first-ever photos of the remarkably photogenic bird and made the first-ever recordings of a male variety of the species (a female was described back in the 1920s).

Then the team killed it.

In Filardi’s original field-journal post, no indication was made regarding the bird’s demise, but Paul Sweet, collection manager for the department of ornithology at the American Museum of Natural History and one of the researchers on the team, confirmed that the animal was intentially killed.

The decision to kill the bird so it can be studied as a “scientific specimen” has divided both the scientific community and the public on when and if researchers should kill wildlife in the name of conservation. (Yes, they kill the rare species in order to ‘save’ it.)

With the collected sample, researchers now have a more comprehensive set of molecular, morphological, and toxicological data and plumage data that can’t be garnered from blood samples, individual feathers, or photographs, Filardi said.

“The specters of extinction for island birds loom in today’s world,” Filardi wrote. “The collection of a single moustached kingfisher is not among them. And, beyond advancing science, I believe this act will positively impact the kingfisher’s world.”

Source: Yahoo News

Yes, killing a rare bird that only lives on one island in the world that you took 20 years to find, capture and photograph…and then snuff out is a great, positive impact on the bird’s world. If this is advancing science, one can see why global warming should be shunned at all costs.

Since you exhale “poisonous CO2” you should end up like the Kingfisher…killed.

…to positively impact the world and advance science, of course.