It’s been over 90 years since the last confirmed record of the Makira Moorhen. Is it still alive?
The last confirmed record of the Makira Moorhen was in the Solomon Islands in 1929. Over the past 90 years there have been several reports from local people who claim to have seen this enigmatic forest bird, but no one has been able to confirm whether or not the Makira Moorhen still exists. In 2015-2016, my collaborator Dr. Al Uy (University of Rochester) and I organized an expedition to document local knowledge of the moorhen on the island of Makira. With a team of local islanders, I spent three months traveling Makira’s rugged “weather coast” and interviewing people about the moorhen. Following reports from local hunters, we traveled into some of Makira’s most remote mountains to see if we could find the moorhen for ourselves.
Check out the links below to learn more about this expedition! My expedition to Makira was inspired by my work in Samoa on the closely related Samoan Moorhen - see that page for more.
Learn more…
This project was possible thanks to support from the Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund, the National Geographic Society Conservation Trust, the Erasmus Darwin Barlow Fund from the Zoological Society of London, and the Oxford University Expeditions Council.
Mittermeier, J.C., G. Dutson, R. E. James, T. E. Davies, R. Tako, and J. A. C. Uy. 2018. The Avifauna of Makira (San Cristobal), Solomons Islands. Wilson Journal of Ornithology 130(1): 235-255.
To learn more about Al Uy’s long-term work in Makira visit his site: http://tropbiolab.org/JACU/
Stay tuned, I’m currently working on a larger write-up of this project that I think is going to be a lot fun!
What is it like traveling into the mountains of Makira?
Here’s a taste of our experience traveling into the Harigha region of southeastern Makira, Solomon Islands. Our aim was to reach a remote valley where a local hunter claimed to have seen a family of Makira Moorhens nearly 40 years ago.
