WASHINGTON- To most of the world, the pink-headed duck is probably extinct. But not to Richard Thorns.

This week, he launches a seventh expedition into the wilds of Myanmar to search for the pink-headed duck that hasn't been seen alive since 1949, and that was in India. No one has seen the bird alive in Myanmar in more than a century.

Thorns quit his shop clerk job 20 years ago to find the pink duck. The British writer has spent $20,000 of his own money on previous fruitless trips. His birder brother has called him mad.

This latest trip is partly funded by the Global Wildlife Conservation group, which has launched a hunt for 25 "lost species," beginning with the duck.