CREDIT: WILDLIFE CONSERVATION SOCIETY; WILDLIFE CONSERVATION SOCIETY/NICK BRICKLE
A bird in hand led to a rabbit in the bush recently for a Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) team working in Sumatra, Indonesia. In January, a local trapper presented them with a live Sumatran ground cuckoo, a species once thought extinct (inset). Seeking more data, the team set up camera traps in Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park. Instead of a bird, they got shots of the equally rare and endangered Sumatran striped rabbit, last spotted by camera trap 7 years ago. "You don't expect to see rabbits in a tropical rainforest," much less striped ones, says Nick Brickle, head of the WCS Indonesia Program. It was believed to be the only striped rabbit in existence until researchers discovered one in 1999 in Laotian mountains.
Meanwhile, the team recorded the call of the captured cuckoo. "We went back into the forest, played the tape, and out pops a couple of wild ones," the first ever seen by scientists, says Brickle. The group plans further studies of both species. Perhaps more importantly, says Brickle, they have gained two appealing symbols for the ongoing battle to protect the forest from farmers and loggers.
