Chris Filardi spent 20 years tracking down the moustached kingfisher, a rare bird in the Solomon Islands. Last month, he finally found a male specimen which he photographed before killing him.
The quest for the “phantom bird”
Chris Filardi is an American biologist who for years sought the moustached kingfisher, a rare specimen of birds living on the island of Guadalcanal, located in the archipelago of the Solomon Islands (Southwest Pacific).
The bird is so rarely seen by humans that it is also called the phantom bird; however, their cry is so distinct it can be easily heard. It is thanks to this cry that Chris Filardi and his team have been able to approach a male and take a picture.
The discovery was exceptional: it is indeed the first photos taken of the animal with bright colors (the female version is, as so often in these species, the colors much less vibrant).
After the photo, Chris Filardi killed the bird, causing uproar among the scientific community.
A justifiable death?
The researcher justifies his action by the scientific interest is the preservation of such a specimen. Indeed, if the bird is relatively known by locals, but western science still has very little information about it.
Chris Filardi also emphasises that the preservation of a whole body to detect, among other things, the impact of pollution but also to better understand the morphology or the composition of the plumage.
It appears that even his colleagues are opposed to his actions. This is the case of Dr. Marc Bekoff, professor of ecology and biology at the University of Colorado, which stresses that it is time to reflect on the needs of research. For the latter, biology is indeed too bloody and killing of species, for whatever reason is no longer relevant.
And you, what do you think?