Deforestation threatens the land on which the new antpitta species lives.
Environmentalists are hoping to buy land in the region to protect the bird. Robert S. Ridgely, Director of the Center for Neotrpical Ornithology at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, announced the find on June 11. Ridgely and fellow birder John Moore first heard the creature's canine cry last November as they trekked through the Andes in Southern Ecuador near the Podocarpus National Park . Robert S. Ridgely met this new species of Antpitta on a hike through the Andes. It is one of the largest birds discovered within the past 50 years.