Sander Gussekloo, researcher at Experimental Zoology, sees an alternative.
‘The creation of collections, what Filardi does, is useful. For example, I have researched skulls of birds, of which some were very rare. For that I can go to Naturalis, I do not have to go to the field. That saves a lot of time and animal lives. Ten years ago researchers would take everything that they could find, but that does not happen anymore. We do not have enough space for all those collections. There is currently a discussion: what do we still need to collect?’
Are there alternatives?
‘I think that photography can capture a lot of features of animals and plants. Then there is no real need to kill and stuff them. Additionally, you can draw blood for DNA analysis. Then you should be able to answer most research questions.’
Filardi would have killed a very rare bird.
‘According to him it is not that bad. You can recognize the birds by their singing. Before the researchers went out to catch it, they did an estimation. They arrived at 4.000 pairs. Removing one is not that bad for the population. The moustached kingfisher is often heard, but was never caught on camera.’
But suppose it is rare?
‘If every individual of a species is important, then you should not remove it, you would have to capture it on camera and release it. But if the habitat of such a rare bird is already gone, then that one specimen will not make the different. You have to realize that extinction is bad from society’s perspective, but not always from a biological point of view. The panda bear is still alive because of the breeding programmes in zoos, but this is little related to the natural population.’