"Scientific world celebrates stunning discovery of UPV wildlife biologist"
by Christine E. Telesforo, U.P. Newsletter, September 2004.

Iloilo-born and bred wildlife biologist Carmela P. Espanola, a graduate of the University of the Philippines in the Visayas, is the current toast of the international scientific community after her discovery of a new rail species in the island of Calayan in the Babuyan islands was published in the August 2004 issue of the Forktail, the journal of Asian ornithology.

The international press release for the amazing find was handled by the Birdlife International and locally by the Wild Bird Club of the Philippines. The story was subsequently picked up by leading news services like Reuters, Associated Press and Agence France-Presse. When British Broadcasting Corp. features the story at 10 am on August 17 (Philippine time), it became a top attraction for its Science/Nature segment, generating ;more than 80,000 hits on the BBC website. It was a top story for a few moments later on Google news. When it came out on Yahoo news, the story generated a vibrant creation vs. evolution debate on the Message Boards. As of August 19, 2004, the story was on 97 English-language website covered by Google, plus 25 German-language sites, 16 Spanish-language sites and three French-language sites. There was also widespread interest from magazines and newspapers. The story was front-page news for at least four national dailies in the Philippines alone on 18 August 2004. Radio and TV coverage of the story was likewise extensive in the UK, Canada and New Zealand.