A news brief in the 9 August issue of _Nature_:

  Hungry Hunters Dine on 'Extinct' Bird

  [London] Half a century is a long time to wait for your
  favorite food. So when three Indonesian hunters stumbled
  across a species of game bird not sighted since 1938 and
  thought to have become extinct, they had no doubts about
  what to do: they ate it.

  The unlucky Bruijn's brush-turkey (Aepypodius bruijnii)
  was caught on the island of Waigeo, off northwest New
  Guinea. Researches from Holland and Indonesia identified
  the bird from its remains, which were salvaged by a local
  man who knew that they were searching for it.

The finding is described as bad luck for that particular bird, but good
luck for brush-turkey-kind. Now that scientists know that the bird is
still around, they plan to redouble their efforts to find more, hoping to
preserve (ecologically, not gastronomically) the remainder.

-- Bruce


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Bruce Toback    Tel: (602) 996-8601| My candle burns at both ends;
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btoback AT optc.com                |     -- Edna St. Vincent Millay
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