birding-aus

Last of the po'ouli?

To: Birding Aus <>
Subject: Last of the po'ouli?
From: knightl <>
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 2004 18:56:29 +1000
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20041201.wbird1201/ BNStory/specialScienceandHealth

Wednesday, Dec 1, 2004

Last known bird in Hawaiian species dies

Honolulu —  One of Earth's rarest birds might have gone into extinction
following the death of one of the last known po'ouli.

The aging male po'ouli died in captivity on Friday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said this week, after recently contracting avian
malaria. The exact cause of death will not be known until tests from
the necropsy are completed.

The remaining two po'ouli, believed to be a male and a female, have not been seen for nearly a year. They may also have died, moved to another area or have just been missed by wildlife officials.

“This species was a unique part of Earth's history,” said Eric
VanderWerf, the Fish and Wildlife Service's Hawaiian bird recovery
co-ordinator. “We'll never have another one like it if it disappears. I
kind of liken it in someway to the loss of the Mona Lisa or the Sistine Chapel. If we lost that, we could never get it back.”

The rare Hawaiian honeycreeper had been kept at the Maui Bird
Conservation Center in Olinda since it was captured for breeding on
Sept. 9. Biologists failed to capture a mate for the aging bird, which was found in the Hanawi Natural Area Reserve.

The state, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Zoological Society of San Diego, which operates the Maui conservation centre, began a search this week to find the remaining two po'ouli in the remote rainforests of Maui.

The small, stocky, brown bird with a partial black face described as a bandit's mask was discovered in 1973 by a group of University of Hawaii students conducting research on the east slope of Haleakala volcano. It has its own genus and is the only Hawaiian forest bird to rely heavily on native tree snails for food.

Tissue samples from the dead bird were saved for cryogenic preservation for possible cloning in the future.

“Some day, when technology catches up with our fantasies, we may be able to resurrect the po'ouli because we saved these cells,” Mr.
Lieberman said.

The po'ouli's numbers have dwindled because of habitat loss and
introduced predators such as rats, cats and mongoose. Nonnative
diseases carried by mosquitoes have also taken a toll on the Hawaiian birds.

--------------------------------------------
Birding-Aus is now on the Web at
www.birding-aus.org
--------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message 'unsubscribe
birding-aus' (no quotes, no Subject line)
to 


<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the birding-aus mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the archive e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU