The black-necked pheasant pigeon, a bird thought to be extinct for 140 years, has been rediscovered in the forests of Papua New Guinea, CNN and News.ro reported.

Scientists first and last documented the bird in 1882, according to a press release from Re:wild, a nonprofit organization that helped fund the search.

Rediscovering the bird required the expedition team to spend a grueling month on Ferguson, a rocky island in the D’Entrecasto Archipelago in eastern Papua New Guinea where the bird was first documented.

The team consisted of local staff from the National Museum of Papua New Guinea, as well as international scientists from the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology and the American Bird Conservancy.

Ferguson Island has rugged mountainous terrain, which made the expedition particularly difficult for scientists.

“It was like finding a unicorn”

Many community members told the team they hadn’t seen black-necked pheasants in decades. But just two days before the researchers left the island, a video camera captured the image of an extremely rare bird.

“After a month of searching, seeing these first photos of a pheasant pigeon was like finding a unicorn. This is the moment you dream of your whole life as an ornithologist and conservationist,” John S. Mittermeier, director of the American Bird Conservancy’s Lost Bird Program and co-leader of the expedition, said in a statement.

According to the release, the black-necked pigeon is a large ground pigeon with a broad tail.

Scientists still know little about the species and believe the population is small and declining.

Information provided by local residents is essential

Information provided by residents was essential for scientists to track down the elusive bird.

“It wasn’t until we reached the villages on the western slopes of Mount Kilkerran that we began to encounter hunters who saw and heard the pheasant pigeon. We became more confident about the bird’s local name, which is ‘Auvo,’ and we felt we were getting closer to the core habitat of black-necked pheasants,” said Jason Gregg, conservation biologist and co-director of the organization. expedition team.

They placed a total of 12 cameras on the slopes of Mount Kilkerran, which is the highest mountain on the island. And they placed eight more cameras in places where, according to local hunters, they had seen the bird in the past.

A hunter named Augustin Gregory from the mountain village of Duda-Ununa made the final discovery that helped scientists find the pheasant pigeon.

Gregory told the team he saw black-necked pheasants in an area with “steep slopes and valleys,” according to the news release. And he heard the bird’s characteristic cries.

Therefore, the expedition team placed the camera on a high ridge near the Kwama River above Duda Ununa. And finally, when their journey was coming to an end, they photographed a bird walking on the ground in the forest.

The discovery came as a shock to both scientists and the local community.

“The communities were very excited when they saw the results because many people had not seen or heard of the bird until we started our project and received the camera trap photos,” said Serena Cataloya, a conservationist in Milne Bay, Papua – New Guinea. , in a press release.