This week’s Guest Blog was written by Linda Hufford, who has been a wildlife rehabilitator specializing in raptors for over twenty years. She runs Birds of Texas Rehabilitation Center in Austin County, Texas. Guest blog posts do not necessarily reflect the views of other 10,000 Birds writers.
A number of years ago I was granted the privilege of flying into the Kuparuk Oil Field, above the Arctic Circle in the remote regions of the North Slope Borough in Alaska. Upon arrival we were given strict and non-flexible rules: never go even one inch off the ice paths, never allow the tiniest piece of litter to escape, never interact in any way with the wildlife, and cause absolutely no environmental damage. Penalties would be swift and severe for any type of violation, including huge fines and immediate removal.
We were given an impressive tour of the self-contained pods, and told how the environmental imprint of each unit was reduced as much as possible by recycling and flying out waste products; using support blocks and insulation to avoid damage to the permafrost; designating “people” space within a very limited perimeter; preparing “ice roads” for necessary traffic to avoid undue pressure to the permafrost; strict prohibition of any contact with wildlife; and factoring in the environmental impact in every decision regarding operations.
During the free time, I spoke off the record with an individual who had been based at the complex for a number of years. As a wildlife rehabilitator who has dealt with both the US Fish and Wildlife and our state’s Parks and Wildlife for over twenty years, I half-jokingly asked him what I thought was a “duh” question: “How frustrating is it to deal with governmental regulations concerning wildlife?”
His answer surprised me. He said the federal government’s and Alaska’s state rules were, for the most part, okay; they were consistent and generally made sense for the safety of both humans and wildlife, and in many respects, coincided with his own views of protecting the native environment. But, he continued, some – but not all – of the researchers drove him nuts.
Astonished by this unexpected response, I asked for elaboration. He said researchers were of two types: the sincere and dedicated people who were producing extraordinary information while observing the natural environment carefully and without causing damage; and the Truly Arrogant (generally younger, privileged, self-important, and totally uncooperative researchers) who arrived with a superiority complex that made them unwilling to adhere to the basic rules so strictly enforced by the oil companies. Their attitude was “the rules don’t apply to me, I’m a researcher.”
The Truly Arrogant tramped across the delicate tundra and permafrost, baiting wildlife with food, camping on prohibited areas, intruding on forbidden mating grounds, interrupting the natural behaviors of the wildlife, and leaving trash, disturbed tundra, and permanent damage to the permafrost in their wake. Their justification was that the animals don’t necessarily approach the very few reinforced areas and must be tracked down and baited so further studies can be made, despite the fact that this disrupted the animals’ natural cycles (thus rendering observations invalid) and caused irreversible damage to the delicate environment. The few Truly Arrogant caused as much or more environmental damage than the 300 full-time employees and operations following very strict rules and regulations.
This attitude of superiority and arrogance can be seen in the recent story about a researcher on the Solomon Islands who mist trapped a bird not seen by scientists for fifty years. The Moustached Kingfisher was known by only three samples– one female “collected” in the 1920’s, the other two females “collected” in the 1950’s, according to an Audubon Magazine article. The newest find of this extremely scarce bird was a male, and was “collected” (an innocent-sounding euphemism for “killed”) for the American Museum of Natural History.
The justification was ridiculously laughable: in order to further study the species. The collector was also quoted as saying that although the bird hadn’t been seen since locals collected the females in the 1950’s, there are lots of them, they’re just unseen. Huh?
Can a dead bird educate the researcher on its song? Or how gracefully it flew? Where and how it gathered food? How its diet changed seasonally? How it raised its chicks? Who its predators were? How it is being affected by human intrusions? Its natural longevity? The unique behaviors this mysterious species might exhibit? The relationship between this bird and other animals and plants?
Or is this researcher (and his backers, the AMNH) members of the Truly Arrogant: privileged to take a “trophy” that no other researchers had taken? If he were a Minnesota dentist, or a Texas veterinarian, or a beauty contestant posing with this trophy, would his argument for justifying this death be any different? And would the response of the public be the same?
Researchers can and do provide valuable information. As a wildlife rehabilitator, I’ve used many of their gathered facts to improve my bird care. Research done on (live) Barn Owls provided proof that the hearing of juveniles is not mature until they are about four months of age, so under no circumstances do I release ones any younger. Researchers observing (live) Mississippi Kites provide very useful information on the timing, paths, and correlation with fronts that I use when releasing my kites. Researchers studying (live) Hummingbirds discovered their diet consists of a large percentage of protein from insects; I use that information for my rehab diets. Common Nighthawks use lunar cycles, so my releases are based on this valuable information in order to give my birds the best chance of survival.
But what habits, what behaviors, what changes can truly be obtained by studying another dead rare bird? Or more specifically—what valuable information would be unique to this discovery when other samples already exist for study? And is the amount of knowledge gained anywhere near the amount of knowledge lost by the deliberate killing of this bird?
“Researcher” is a term that should differ greatly from the term “trophy hunter.” How incredibly sad that in this instance, in my opinion, it does not.
there are lots of them, they’re just unseen. Huh?
Yeah, that happens a lot. See Yellow Rail. Or maybe ask 10,000 Birds’s own Corey about his experience with Black Rails.
Can a dead bird educate the researcher on its song? Or how gracefully it flew? Where and how it gathered food? How its diet changed seasonally? How it raised its chicks? Who its predators were? How it is being affected by human intrusions? Its natural longevity? The unique behaviors this mysterious species might exhibit? The relationship between this bird and other animals and plants?
Why do you assume that additional research on live birds isn’t occurring? Why do you assume that there are only two, mutually exclusive, ways to study a species?
I find it incredibly galling to hear people accuse this researcher of arrogance when they don’t even attempt to understand what this team is trying to do beyond this one single incidence. I mean, how arrogant is *that*?
But what habits, what behaviors, what changes can truly be obtained by studying another dead rare bird?
Well, obviously behaviors can’t be studied. But you have live birds for that. Physiology and taxonomy are kind of critical.
To build on your accusation of arrogance, it takes no shortage of arrogance to assume one knows more about bird research in the Solomon Islands than someone who has done it for 20+ years.
Nate,
Is this guy a friend of yours? Because you skipped past the whole first half of this blog, which made many valid points, and went straight for poor, maligned Chris Filardi.
According to the Washington Post, Filardi “waxed poetic” about the bird he’d been searching for for twenty years: “They are ghosts, until they reveal themselves in a thrilling moment of clarity, then they’re gone again.” Right. This particular one is gone again because thanks to Chris Filardi, he’s lying dead in a specimen bag in the American Museum of Natural History.
Scientists have been looking for this bird for years, yet this one researcher announces that, according to the natives, it’s “unremarkably common.” Funny the natives didn’t tell that to the scores of other researchers who have been slogging through the mountains with nets and notebooks.
Since Filardi has been in the spotlight, why didn’t he describe what other research his team has been doing? Not to make an arrogant comment, but his justification for killing this rare bird was lousy.
Fact: mining and logging threaten the kingfisher population. Fact: we need to do something about it. Fact: everyone seems to think this species is on the brink of extinction except for Chris Filardi, who looked for one for 20 years, then finally found one and killed it after posing with it for a nice photo. Linda’s second to last paragraph sums it up perfectly: what exactly can be learned by killing this bird – and removing it from the dwindling gene pool – that plucking two feathers and taking a blood sample would not provide? Physiology and taxonomy have already been covered.
It’s hardly arrogant to criticize Filardi. Doing anything for 20+ years may make you knowledgeable, but it certainly does not guarantee your ethics.
“Funny the natives didn’t tell that to the scores of other researchers who have been slogging through the mountains with nets and notebooks.”
What scores of other researchers? There have been no other ornithological expeditions to the species’s range in decades. It’s not that tons of people have been searching the bird’s habitat and not seen it. It’s that outside birders/scientists very rarely make it into the bird’s habitat. Once there, seeing the species apparently is not difficult, which implies that its population is perfectly healthy within the right habitat.
“But you have live birds for that”. Assuming there is enough of them. Not a 100% sure thing, from what I read.
He’s not a friend of mine. What difference does that make? I skipped the first half because this piece is such a mess that if I went line by line picking apart the misconceptions it would have taken all day.
He’s in the spotlight pretty much only because people have made a huge deal about this. And he didn’t “look for this bird for 20 years”. Filardi studies birds in the Solomon Islands. All the birds. All the islands. He didn’t spent 20 years looking for this one species because we’ve pretty much assumed it’s been there the whole time. It’s just a really hard and expensive place to get to. It’s telling that when he finally got to the spot where this species lives it wasn’t terribly difficult to find.
Yes, this particular one is gone, but not mentioned in this hatchet job is that fact that the government of the Solomon Islands has held up this one specimen as an impetus to protect the area where it lives from mining and logging interests. It is absolutely a tool for conservation.
If you truly want to learn why specimens are important, please read this: http://www.universityofalaskamuseumbirds.org/reaffirming-the-specimen-gold-standard/
What evidence do you have that would suggest there aren’t enough?
Clearly it is time for science to evolve a little. The practice of field collecting specimins is no loner needed. Tissue samples, tracking devices, trailcams, and any number of other non-lethal research tools are far more valuable scientically than making a study skin and sticking it in a drawer somewhere.
The Washington Post: Filardi “…. found a bird he had searched more than two decades for – the mustached kingfisher.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/10/12/a-scientist-found-a-bird-that-hadnt-been-seen-in-half-a-century-then-killed-it-heres-why/
“We’ve pretty much assumed it’s been there the whole time.” Who is we? And “pretty much assumed” doesn’t sound very scientific, does it?
Good for the Solomon Islands to use “this one specimen as an impetus to protect the area where it lives ….” But why wouldn’t a photo have sufficed? I can’t make sense of your argument – it sounds as if you’re saying that the most responsible tool for conservation is the outrage and ensuing hatchet jobs that follow a researcher killing a rare bird. I’d watch where you lob the term “mess.”
Yes, Filardi had it in his mind to find this bird, but it wasn’t his sole focus as you heavily and incorrectly imply. A few birders have made the difficult and expensive trek to the area and most have heard the bird, though seeing it is another matter. Because it is really secretive and the habitat has not changed much in the intervening years So yeah, “we”, as in the birding and ornithological community, have assumed it to be there for decades. A fair assumption under the circumstances, and one that turned out to be correct. It’s even in eBird.
If you think I’m saying that outrage is a responsible tool for conservation, then you’re not reading carefully. The government of the Solomon Islands is pointing to this specimen as a voucher that the bird is still there and using that as justification to protect the area. It may have been that a photo would be enough, but from a scientific perspective a photo is not a replacement for a whole bird specimen. And if the gov’t of the Solomon Islands, not to mention the indigenous population whose perspective you effectively mock in your first comment, is on board, and they’re the ones who will have the responsibility to protect this area, that’s good enough for me.
I’m not saying you can’t have a negative response to this incident. That’s fine. Not everyone has to like scientific collecting. But to impugn the reputation of the researcher and basically call his 20+ years of conservation experience in the area fraudulent is wildly irresponsible. Especially when that opinion is based on misunderstanding of the bird and the circumstances surrounding the research trip. This is the same attitude that creationists and climate change deniers take when they disagree with the work of scientists and I would hope that birders and bird-friendly people are better than that.
That’s simply not true. Not to say that those items are not useful (though they tend to be very expensive particularly in a place as isolated is the highlands of Guadalcanal) but they tell you different things. Nor can you be certain that they’d even be effective with this species in this place.
Nate – take a breath. I did not “heavily and incorrectly imply” Filardi had been looking for the bird for 20 years – the Washington Post wrote it directly. I quoted the Washington Post. If you’re saying you’re right and they’re wrong, take it up with them.
I did not mock the native people nor the government of the Solomon Islands. I mocked Chris Filardi for his inane justifications, as well as his purple-prosey descriptions of the glorious bird in its island paradise (before he killed it).
Depending on which publications/comments you read, the Solomon Islands are either crawling with mustached kingfishers or the birds are nearly extinct. The government is using the fact that this one bird was proven to exist to protect the area – which, to me, says the mustached kingfisher in question should be out there breeding, not lying in a drawer in the AMNH.
Yes. The Washington Post is wrong. Or at least they are squishy with the facts in service to the narrative they want to push. But the Washington Post is not a scientific journal and should be taken with a grain of salt.
Cool, you claim to mock Filardi but not the people who are actively working with him and backing his research. The people who he uses to partly inform his work. I’m not sure that makes much sense, but whatever.
According to the credible publications, the population is small but healthy. It’s not hard to figure out which ones use figures you can trust. And *one* specimen is heading to the AMNH. ONE. The Mustached Kingfisher as a species is still breeding, flying, doing whatever Mustached Kingfishers do. And if the sacrifice of this one helps inform decisions that lead to their protection, they will be more likely to continue to do so.
What will definitely not help Mustached Kingfishers, however, is misinformed essays that denigrate the work of the one scientist in the world who has sought them out in order to learn more about them. So take that however you like.
The people working with and backing Filardi did not kill a rare bird. Filardo did.
According to the credible publications you cite, exactly what information will this bird’s carcass provide that blood/feather samples would not?
The people working with Filardi used to regularly kill the bird for food. Is that worth mocking?
I posted a link above. It has a dozen or so references. Please feel free to check those out. In fact, I’ll post it again here.
http://www.universityofalaskamuseumbirds.org/reaffirming-the-specimen-gold-standard/
Regularly? Then why does the government need to use Filardi’s bird to protect the area? And why do you keep deflecting my criticism of Filardi onto the Solomon Islanders?
You didn’t answer my question, which is at the heart of this entire controversy. Why do I need to comb through reference material when I can just ask you for the answer?
They found the place. They heard several individuals. The birds were not going anywhere. A more reasonable (should i say scientific?) approach would have been to check that the bird population was more than, say, one thousand pairs (that sounds like a reasonable number to me), and then, collect one bird if necessary.
Instead the bird was collected on the same day it was rediscovered. Seems like a “shoot first, think later” approach to me.
They need to protect the area because logging and mining interests are interested in the natural resources! You noted this yourself in an earlier comment!
Keep deflecting? I’m not deflecting anything. Can you please stay consistent from comment to comment? I’m saying that Filardi’s collection of one bird is not even as invasive to the species on the whole as the indigenous population who used to hunt them for food so you’re absolutely wrong when you say the people working with and backing him did not kill a bird. It would be nice to see you admit that you’re wrong about something.
You need to comb through reference material because you asked for it. The authors of those papers are far more authoritative on this sort of thing than I am. So if you want to learn about it, go there. The Alaska Museum link in particular is great and written for laypeople.
They absolutely did not collect the bird on the same day they first encountered it. You can read Filardi’s own account here: https://www.audubon.org/news/why-i-collected-moustached-kingfisher
The relevant passage is as follows (emphasis mine):
I think that there are points to be made against collection of specimens, but arguing that the oil industry in Alaska is less harmful to wildlife than researchers is one of the most hilariously absurd things that I can imagine.
Here’s a link to an article that appeared in Science last year, arguing against specimen collection: http://www.ecoservices.asu.edu/pdf/Minteer%20et%20al,%20Science%20(2014).pdf
And, here’s the rebuttal, signed by over 100 scientists (also cited by Duncan in his post about collecting):
http://biology.unm.edu/Witt/pub_files/Science-2014-Rocha-814-5.pdf
This article is also good: http://ns.umich.edu/new/releases/22196-collecting-biological-specimens-essential-to-science-and-conservation
I think the question can be discussed rationally, but based on science, not quotes from unnamed sources, utilization of facts from secondary sources, the maligning scientists as a group and as individuals, the employment of emotional pulls, and (yeah, I know this is just me, but it irks) the unauthorized use of copyrighted photographs.
ok, it was 3 days, not one. Mea culpa. But there was six known pairs, and one bird was collected??????
How can he possibly estimate that 15% of the island has suitable habitat, if nobody knows anything about that bird?
Maybe the kingfisher is a picky bird, just like our Kirtland Warbler here in Michigan, and only lives in trees of a certain size (and/or soil of a particular quality and/or certain type of food), and the team just got very lucky to be in the 1-2% of the island that can support a population of that bird.
Again, the birds were not going anywhere. There was no need to be trigger happy in this situation. The bird is hopefully going to be studied again in the future and its population properly assessed.
To not know why scientists consider specimens a valuable resource is excusable. To find out they do but make no effort to understand why, to the point of complaining that too much evidence has been provided is less so.
I’m now imagining Linda wandering through a group of first year medical students, loudly complaining about them using cadavers as part of their route to becoming doctors. “What can you learn about the transmission of flu from a corpse, or how one should draw blood? You can’t learn about irregular heartbeats or how the nervous system responds to a knock to the knee! I don’t know why doctors insist this is important.”
With respect, Laurent, if your argument comes down to incredulity that Filardi could have accurately estimated the population of the species, then that’s not a very strong argument.
A researcher with his experience with birds in the Solomon Islands probably is far more qualified to make that estimate than any of us, and I see no reason to question it without good evidence to do so. Evidence that is better than, “I can’t believe it”.
Yeah, the images have been taken down.
Nate, so, your position is that a sample of 6 birds for 1 km^2 might not be enough to estimate accurately the overall population on a potential territory of 800 km^2, but that his experience makes him qualified to make that call?
I am obviously an outsider of that particular peer-reviewed bubble (I am, after all, only a simple engineer, with a job in data analysis and statistics, and therefore am one of those who “don’t understand”), but I am surprised that those calculations/assumptions don’t at least raise an eyebrow inside the bird collectors community.
I am sure that the vast majority of bird collected are done in a careful way with a targeted scientific project in mind (I am less sure about the actual motives to collect super-rare vagrants, which seems a little bit too close to “museum-sponsored trophy hunting” to me), but the few questionable situations that should have initiated a debate within the peer-reviewed cell are just bad P.R., and P.R. is definitely part of the business for what is largely a public funded activity.
At the end of the day, this is more a PR issue than anything else, and while posing with a cute bird and later, kill it, might not be a scientific mistake, it is definitely a disastrous PR mistake. And calling stupid all the ones who disagree with the occasional mishap (“you don’t understand”) might not be the best approach
…your position is that a sample of 6 birds for 1 km^2 might not be enough to estimate accurately the overall population on a potential territory of 800 km^2, but that his experience makes him qualified to make that call
Yeah, pretty much. Is that a problem?
I would expect there to be details about bird populations in the Solomons that we are not aware of. I expect that he probably has a better understanding of how things stand than any of us sitting behind our computer screens.
I understand the perspective of the author, but what has me confused is why 10000 birds decided provide it with a platform.
In the face of so many conservation threats to birds is it really worth trying to demonize scientists?
https://blogs.nicholas.duke.edu/birds/killing-birds-scientists/
It’s time for a certain segment of the scientific community to stop heaping abuse on 10,000 Birds for this blog. 10,000 Birds did not “outsource” this topic, they did not “assign” it, they did not even “greenlight” it. The responsibility is entirely and personally mine. It was written by a fellow wildlife rehabilitator and I posted it before the founders of 10,000 birds even read it, so in the future please direct your hate mail to me.
The post very clearly stated there were two types of scientific researchers: one, the “sincere and dedicated people who were producing extraordinary information,” and two, the ones who didn’t follow the rules and did more harm than good. At the end, she describes how she has personally benefited from the work done by the first type of researchers. She never named Chris Filardi.
When she began receiving personal attacks, I defended her, just as some of the scientific community has done for Chris Filardi – at least the ones not disgusted by his killing of the kingfisher. Accusing her of maligning all researchers is a silly, emotional way of responding, something I would not have expected from people of science.
I have been a wild bird rehabilitator for 25 years. If someone wrote an article stating that some rehabbers were “sincere and dedicated people who were producing extraordinary results,” and others did not follow the rules and did more harm than good, I would have agreed wholeheartedly.
Stop for a moment and consider the point of view of a wildlife rehabilitator: every bird matters. This viewpoint comes in handy when we work like dogs to save the lives of endangered and threatened species. Unlike researchers and biologists, we have to deal with the public, and every time we accept an injured or orphaned bird, every time we do an educational program, we say every bird matters – because that is the best way to get through to people who are, for the most part, clueless and uncaring about wildlife. Once they have a tangible link with a single bird, they begin to realize the world is filled with single birds. Their consciousness is raised, and they start to care about what happens to them.
Unlike researchers and biologists, wildlife rehabilitators rarely get paid. Those supposedly terrible conditions endured by researchers on tropical islands sound pretty damned nice to rehabilitators who spend summers working 16-hour shifts, including raising threatened species of flycatchers whose parents were killed by pet cats. Don’t show us a photo and an article – in Audubon, for God’s sake – about a rare, healthy bird killed for science. When we pose with a bird, it’s because it has recovered from sometimes catastrophic injury, and we’re about to let it go.
10,000 Birds is one of the most popular birding sites in the world because its founders encourage discussion and debate and their writers span all viewpoints. Although I personally stand by the guest writer and support her outrage, this is one of the few posts which would not have made it past the editorial board, had they seen it. So, save your fury toward the site, direct it at me, and move on.
A bird is a creature that needs protection in this world. I love birds, your writing is great.