Was This the Last Appetizer of Its Kind?
Stop me if you’ve heard this one: A guy walks into a restaurant in the Philippines and orders roast fowl. “How would you like it?” asks the waiter. “Rare,” he says…
Well, they don’t get much rarer than this.
In January, a team making a documentary about traditional bird-trapping methods in Luzon captured an image of a bird that was thought to be extinct.
The specimen caught the eye of ornithologist Desmond Allen, a member of the Wild Bird Club of the Philippines, who spotted it in a photo accompanying the credits. He identified its species as Worcester’s buttonquail (Turnix worcesteri), a bird whose presence hadn’t been recorded for more than a century.
Cause for celebration?
You might think so, except for one tiny problem: Shortly after being photographed, the bird was sold for about 20 cents and eaten! It made for a bittersweet experience for Filipino birdwatchers.
“What if this was the last of its species?” worried Mike Lu, the Wild Bird Club’s president.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGikx56SmSgFor the moment, all ornithologists can do is watch and wait, in hopes that Worcester’s buttonquail will show up again someday, preferably with a little more lag time before dinner. At least the documentary crew came up with an apt name for their production: It’s called Bye-Bye Birdie.
By DanBing on 01-06-2009
Comment by hobosexy
June 1st, 2009 at 4:35 pm
fail.
Comment by Marc
June 2nd, 2009 at 4:02 pm
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Poor birdy, but you know how hungry people are..
Comment by Assunta
June 2nd, 2009 at 5:49 pm
It looks like a dwarf chicken. Honestly. I'm from the Philippines and many local chickens have same coloring as that bird. They probably thought it was a dwarf chicken and sold it for 10 Pesos (20 US Cents), coz it does not have much meat on it. If the guy who sold it found out how rare it truly was…I'm sure he's knocking his head on the wall coz he could have sold it for thousands of US dollars (hundreds of thousands of Philippine Pesos) to a zoo or some rich person who loves birds. Bwahahahahaha! Poor guy! Anyway I do not think this was the last of its kind. Surely this bird had parents, and probably brothers and sisters. hehehe.
Comment by Geezus
June 5th, 2009 at 6:33 am
sad,imagine last of its kind,omg
Comment by TheQuack
June 9th, 2009 at 3:47 am
totally.
Comment by Sabrina
June 10th, 2009 at 6:12 am
They're eatting these birds. No wonder they can't find any they're hiding.
Comment by frank
September 29th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
You know it is incredible and almost unbelievable. This really is so sad.
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