When Science Goes Bad: The Killing of the Male Mustached Kingfisher Bird

Science performs a multitude of greater good for humanity. The good outweighs the bad in almost immeasurable ways. But there are those fleeting times science goes off-the-rails in head-shaking, sigh-inducing, groan-grumbling fashion. This is where we point to those great moments mistakes in science.

Today:  The Killing of the Male Mustached Kingfisher Bird

"It was like finding a unicorn."

That's what Chris Filardi, director of Pacific Programs at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, told Slate writer Rachel Gross after he caught the exceedingly rare male mustached Kingfisher bird last month. A female was captured back in 1927, and again in the 1950s, but no male has ever been caught. The bird, located solely in the "sky island" of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, is so rare, there might only be anywhere between 250 and 1,000 left on the planet.

For nearly two decades Filardi had searched for the male variety of the mustached Kingfisher, and for nearly two decades he came up empty. So after catching the male in a mist net in September, Filardi and his team photographed the fluffy, blue and yellow bird, documented every physical characteristic and plumage, and made a variety of notes only an ornithologist would understand.

And then they killed the male mustached Kingfisher.

Pretend there's a mustached Kingfisher here.

Why? Filardi claims it was done in the name of conservation, in the name of science. "This was not a 'trophy hunt,'" he wrote in a post on the Audubon website after blowback from the public and his fellow scientists kept growing. Indeed, claims Filardi, the real advancement was really not capturing and killing the male Kingfisher, but "discovering that the world this species inhabits is still thriving in a rich and timeless way."

The problem here is that Filardi and his fellow birding enthusiasts are working off plenty of vague hopes. Take this passage from his blog post defending his decision:

"If, conservatively, 15 percent of this area represents suitable habitat, and if we assume densities we encountered are on the high end, this gives a population estimate of over 4000 individuals, a robust number for a large island bird."

What's the difference once the Kingfisher is extinct?

See? This was not a trophy hunt.

Two "if"s and an "assume" in one sentence. Sounds like hard, concrete science to me! If you're scratching your head at the logic, or lack thereof, presented by Filardi, he continues:

"Elders of the local land-owning tribe...relate stories of eating Mbarikuku, the local name for the bird; our local partners knew it as unremarkably common."

"Knew"--past tense. "Relate stories"--from the past. Again, the lack of logic keeps building upon itself. The bird used to be unremarkably common, but has decided to fool with us and play an epic game of hide-and-seek?

But Filardi continues playing both sides of the field. In a blog post he wrote, titled "Finding Ghosts" (the title alone, c'mon), he describes the morning he caught the male bird:

"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."

"Like a creature of myth come to life." But, again, this wasn't a trophy hunt.

Oh, he keeps going. Let's not stop now:

"Uluna-Sutahuri people call the bird Mbarikuku, and the older Uluna members of our team all had stories of encounters with it from their youth."

Again--the "older" locals remember encounters with the bird from their "youth." Not now, but decades and decades ago. Yet, this sort of wording, written by the Filardi, doesn't seem to register with Filardi himself, that maybe, just maybe, the bird is actually as rare as it seems. Maybe there isn't 4,000 of them, but actually 250. Maybe killing a male--which can impregnate multiple females, thus increasing the population--isn't the best idea right now.

Some fellow scientists agree. Mark Bekoff, Professor emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, doesn't see the logic either. As he wrote in an op-ed on The Huffington Post:

"When will the killing of other animals stop? We need to give this question serious consideration because far too much research and conservation biology is far too bloody and does not need to be. [...] Killing "in the name of conservation" or "in the name of education" or "in the name of whatever" simply needs to stop. It is wrong and sets a horrific precedent for future research..."

To recap:

• There's a rare bird.
• There might be as few as 250 alive.
• The male version of this bird has never been caught.
• It's likened to a unicorn.
• It's likened to a creature of myth.
• A scientist spends twenty years of his life searching for this bird.
• He catches a male by chance.
• He kills it.
• He swears it wasn't a trophy hunt.
• He says it was done for science, so why the fuss?
• He doesn't seemingly understand the concept or meaning of "conservation."

Using Filardi's own statement, "It was like finding a unicorn"--if you stumbled upon one, a unicorn, a thing you only associate with myth--would you then kill it? Because, hell, you might never see one again!

No.

No you wouldn't.

Unless you were on a trophy hunt.

Since Filardi owns the rights to the only documented photos of the male mustached Kingfisher, I can't reasonably post a photo without getting yelled at. But the bird will probably be extinct soon, so what's the difference, right?