Rare Philippines Quail Spotted On Way To Cooking Pot
When I read the subject, I was excited thinking that a long lost specie thought to be extinct is alive and kicking. Now, after reading the article, the only thing my mind can think of was “what a waste”. A specie thought to be extinct became possibly extinct again because locals ate it. Wow! Check out a part of the article.
A rare Philippines quail that was feared to have become extinct has been photographed alive for the first time — as it was headed for the cooking pot, according to ornithologists.
Hunters snared the Worcester’s buttonquail (Turnix worcesteri) in the Caraballo mountain range last month and a TV crew took pictures and video footage of the live bird at a poultry market, the Wild Bird Club of the Philippines said.
Club president Michael Lu said the group was “ecstatic” about the find, but they also “feel sad that the locals do not value the biodiversity around them.”
He added: “What if this was the last of its species? Much more has to be done in creating conservation awareness and local consciousness about our unique threatened bird fauna.”
Named after Dean Conant Worcester, an American zoologist who worked in the Philippines in the early 20th century, the bird was previously only known through drawings based on dead museum specimens collected decades ago.
“This is a very important finding,” said Philippines-based Arne Jensen, a Danish ornithologist who heads the bird club’s records committee.
“Once you don’t see a bird species in a generation, you start to wonder if it’s extinct, and for this bird species we simply do not know its status at all.”
The quail’s breeding area remains unknown though ornithologists suspect it resides in the high mountain grasslands of the Cordillera mountain range to the west of the Caraballos on the main island of Luzon.
The quail was being sold at a Manila wet market in Manila in 1902 and since then, just a few single specimens have been documented in Nueva Vizcaya and Benguet provinces, which form part of the two mountain ranges, the club said.
After they took a photo of it I think the ornithologists should have done sometihng to at least get hold of the bird. Perhaps buying it more at a high price so that the owner would have sold it to them right away, thus preserving a thought to be extinct specie. I remember another incident of a rare shark (forgot the name) that worldwide had been spotted only 10 times I think. Twice they were spotted in the Philippines in my hometown of Cagayan de Oro. The status of one of the sharks died while being captured. While the other one, was eaten. Tsk. So sad. This news is a bit old, actually just last month.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 18th, 2009 at 3:19 am and is filed under animals, news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
January 4th, 2010 at 12:03 am
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