Scientist finds a bird not seen in 50 years – then he kills it

[Cage]

This idiot (what I'd really like to call him wouldn't get past the Naughty Word Bot) has got to be kidding.

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/an...12-gk7f25.html

[Lance B]

From the things I have read about this, the bird is not endangered and the locals say they have seen many of them around. As he points out in the article:
"Filardi stressed that, among Guadalcanal locals, the bird is known to be "unremarkably common". He explained how he and his team made the decision – "neither an easy decision nor one made in the spur of the moment" – to collect the bird with reference to "standard practice for field biologists". And he said that killing one kingfisher might help save them all."

The thing is, there would hardly be just one male or just one female as they would have to have many numbers to have survived till now. I think it is a little bit of typical sensationalism by the media, especially the SMH.

[thegrump]

I don't recall them saying they kill the Night Parrot, when they found them in central Australia, after many years of thinking they were extinct.

[Cage]

This was the first male sighted in fifty years, and the first known male photograph. The scientist admitted to searching for it for twenty years, hardly what you'd call 'unremarkedly common'.

I'm afraid I just cant justify any killing 'in the name of science'. If he felt that genetically examining the bird was so important, surely he could have offered the locals an incentive to deliver him a specimen of this 'unremarkedly common' bird, one that had died of natural causes.

[Steve Axford]

Something that would need considerable thought before doing. I not sure how I feel bout this, but it is apparent that considerable thought was given to the question of whether it was right or wrong. I think the headline is intended to lead us to a single conclusion (like so many headlines). The message is one that denigrates biologists and scientists in general and I think this is unfair.

[Mark L]

This idiot

I don't think it''s that simple.

From the things I have read about this, the bird is not endangered and the locals say they have seen many of them around. [/i]

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I think it is a little bit of typical sensationalism by the media, especially the SMH.

And the media you're reading doesn't use sensational headlines?
There is plenty of substance in the article that Kev linked to.

[Lance B]

And the media you're reading doesn't use sensational headlines?
There is plenty of substance in the article that Kev linked to.

They all use sensationalism, especailly the headlines to "suck you in" so to speak. The article itself is a little more level headed, but I suspect the sub-editor wrote the "attention seeking headline" not the journo responsible for the article. Click bait as they say.

I am not necessarily disagreeing that what the "scientist" did was wrong, just that I want to make sure I get all the facts before making a judgement. There are many instances where we've been ill informed by attention seeking media and when the dust settles, the real story is not what we were first led to believe.

[Cage]

I guess a headline like 'Scientist euthanises endangered bird to save species' wouldn't have the same click appeal.

There has to be ways to examine the bird other than killing it.