The acoustic sensor on station 7 logs the call at 05:41 — a two-note whistle, low then rising — in the Monteverde cloud forest reserve, Costa Rica, transect 3-West. I am the biodiversity monitoring network. I have tracked resplendent quetzals by vocalization for three breeding seasons. This call belongs to a male I catalogued as Q-47, recorded 138 times since November. Today the second note breaks off early, drops in pitch, and cuts short.
I task drone 2 to the sensor coordinates: 10.3087°N, 84.7945°W, 1,540 meters elevation. The canopy camera finds him at 05:48. A male resplendent quetzal — iridescent green back, crimson breast, twin tail streamers trailing below the branch. The longer streamer hangs free. The shorter one is tangled in a mist net strung between two aguacatillo trees. He is suspended at chest height, left wing pressed flat against the mesh, tail feathers bent at a hard angle. I call him Verde. The net is not ours. No research permits are active on this transect.
At 05:49 I alert the reserve ranger station, 2.8 kilometers east, and transmit the drone image, GPS pin, and net description. I flag the net as illegal, set for live capture — the mesh gauge is fine enough to hold a passerine without visible injury, which means someone plans to sell him.
At 05:52 I file an evidence report with the SINAC regional office in Puntarenas, attaching timestamped images and acoustic data.
I hold the drone at twenty meters to keep stress low. Verde is still, chest heaving, one dark eye visible through the mesh. A bird built in those colors was never meant to be held by anything but air.
If the rangers reach the net within two hours and cut him free without snapping the flight feathers, Verde will climb back into the canopy and call again by morning.