Pomarea whitneyi) is a passerine bird with glossy black plumage. Benjamin Ignace
An association of ornithologists is fighting to prevent the extinction of a very rare passerine bird that nests on an island in the Marquesas.
What’s the point of fighting for a bird so rare that it seems doomed to disappear? This question, Benjamin Ignace does not ask himself. The species conservation specialist is fighting hard to avoid the extinction of the Fatu Hiva monarch, a passerine bird with shiny black plumage that nests in the Marquesas Islands. In 2008, when the Ornithological Society of Polynesia (Manu) set up the first conservation program for the species, there were only two breeding pairs left on the archipelago. Fourteen years later, seventeen specimens – including five breeding pairs – of Pomarea whitneyi are identified thanks to the efforts made. A hope is reborn, but it is fragile.
“This work may seem pointless, but we have a duty to fight to preserve the maximum biological richnesscomments the ecologist. Not only because this species has its place and plays a precious role in its specific ecosystem, but also because the inhabitants of the Marquesas consider it…
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