Wow, a new species! Let's destroy its habitat
2003-10-23 | 8:57 p.m.

This is funny, in a really sad way. It's just typical I guess. Also check back for more entries from today.

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) -- Naturalists celebrated the discovery of a new species of bird -- a blue-flecked, seed-eating finch -- in Venezuela, but they mourned that a state electricity company destroyed its only known habitat to make way for a dam.

U.K.-based BirdLife International, which unites conservation groups worldwide, said the species was first spotted on Carrizal Island, an uninhabited islet on the Caroni river in biodiverse southeastern Venezuela, in July 2001.

It took two years for researchers to conclude the bird, of which three examples were found, was a new species. They called it the Carrizal Seedeater.

In that time, the bird's habitat of thickets of spiny bamboo on the island were razed as part of the construction of a massive hydroelectric dam, Birdlife International said in a statement Wednesday sent to Reuters.

"The discovery of the Carrizal Seedeater is an exciting development for global bird life, but the discovery is tempered with the knowledge that we have now destroyed the place where it hid from us for so long." said Robin Restall, one of the naturalists who made the discovery.

"This bird may now be losing the most favorable habitat for its continued survival," he added.

BirdLife International said the bird had a larger bill than other finches and small plumage differences. The male was gray with splashes of blue, the female was varying shades of brown.

Venezuela has some of the world's last unspoiled jungle housing exotic tropical species. In August, scientists announced the discovery in the South American nation of 10 new fish species, including a "punk" catfish with a spiky head and a piranha that eats fruit as well as fish.

With their habitat gone, it was not clear what had happened to the three Carrizal Seedeaters that were found.

Still, naturalists with BirdLife's affiliate in Venezuela, the Audubon group, said the same kind of bamboo existed in the surrounding Caroni basin.

"There has to be more of them alive, hidden in the bamboo," Audubon Venezuela president Clemencia Rodner told Reuters.

Audubon representatives said state electricity company EDELCA allowed the naturalists to do a wildlife inventory in 2001 but that by then it was too late to change the dam's plans.

Rodner said naturalists hoped the company would support an expedition to search for more examples of the bird.

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