New Rail Found

A nature story in the news grabbed my attention today, about a new bird species that has been found in the Philippines. It's been named Calayan Rail and it's from the same family has the Coots and Moorhens we have in this country. Apparently, to register the new species, one of the birds had to be killed and dissected, even though they think there are only one to two hundred birds on the island. What would happen if a new species was found but there was no certainty of the existence of others, surely it couldn't be killed to register a new species as extinct. What if there were others but they couldn't be caught, there could potentially be hundreds of common birds flying around that technically don't exist.

I don't see why a living creature needs to be killed to prove it's existence, although I suppose, unless a body could be provided, any new species would be no more recognised than the Yeti or Loch Ness Monster. But then would that be such a bad thing, I mean, if the Loch Ness Monster was ever found, the magic and the mystery surrounding the loch and it's folklore would disappear overnight and probably be replaced a very large stuffed eel in a museum somewhere.