Elusive animal feared extinct for decades — then came a distant cry in the wilderness

A team of researchers was huddled around a campfire in the Australian wilderness when they heard the distinct animal cry.

A 24-year-old volunteer had recorded it just hours before the gathering and Dr. Simon Verdon, the lead researcher from La Trobe University, immediately recognized the sound.

“I thought straight away it was the whipbird,” Verdon said in a La Trobe University news release. “To find that the white-bellied whipbird is not extinct in Victoria is amazing. It shows how resilient they are.”

The white-bellied whipbird has been feared extinct in the state for 40 years, according to the release. Environmental stressors including drought and fire are believed to have impacted their populations.

Verdon and his team were wrapping up an 81-day trek through the Big Desert Wilderness Park when the group heard the bird’s cry, he said in the release. After Verdon heard the recording, he scrambled to the top of a hill to send the audio to experts to confirm it was, in fact, the white-bellied whipbird.

“I was trying not to get too excited and kept a lid on it but when I played it to my staff members they were convinced straight away,” Verdon told The Sydney Morning Herald. “The excitement went from zero to 100 in the camp.”

After the exhilarating discovery, the university shared the audio, captioned “You’re listening to the first recording of the white-bellied whipbird in Victoria in 40 years.”

The white-bellied whipbird is a “timid and elusive bird that inhabits dense vegetation and is able to rapidly run or fly between patches of cover,” according to the Australian Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water. There’s an easy way to tell if a bird is a white-bellied whipbird though, the department says — just listen.

Arduous treks through the wild can be draining, but discoveries like these make it worthwhile, Verdon said in the release.

“You have to be comfortable with yourself, and believe in what you’re doing, because you can get in your own head when you’re walking all day, every day in the bush for over 10 days,” Verdon said. “Then you stumble across a find like this, and it’s a huge shock — followed by excitement and jubilation. We’re just so happy to have found it.”

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