Bird Thought Extinct For 140 Years Has Been Found Alive
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A bird thought to be extinct 140 years ago has been rediscovered in the forests of Papua New Guinea.
According to a press release from Re:wild, a non-profit organization that helped fund the search, scientists first and last saw a black pheasant pigeon in 1882.
To rediscover this bird, the expedition team spent a grueling month on Ferguson, a rocky island in the Antrecasto archipelago off eastern Papua New Guinea, where the bird was originally documented. The team included local staff from the National Museum of Papua New Guinea, as well as international scientists from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the American Society for the Conservation of Birds.
Fergusson Island is covered in rugged, mountainous terrain, making the expedition especially challenging for scientists. Many community members told the team that they did not see the bird.
But just two days before the researchers were due to leave the island, a camera trap caught footage of an exceptionally rare bird. “After a month of searching, seeing these first photos made me feel like I had found a unicorn,” John S. Mittermeier, director of the American Bird Conservancy’s lost bird program and one of the expedition leaders, said in a press release.
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