Po’ouli Is Closer to Extinction as Captive Endangered Bird Dies

The only captive member of what may be the world’s most endangered species of bird has died in Hawaii, zoo officials announced Tuesday.

The death of the male po’ouli at a bird conservation center on Maui comes less than three months after avian conservationists rejoiced at its capture. Only two other po’ouli are known to exist, both in Maui’s dense rain forest.

Bird specialists had hoped to capture one or both of the other birds to assist in a captive breeding program. That effort has been unsuccessful.

Alan Lieberman, the San Diego Zoo’s avian conservation coordinator, said the chances for survival of the species were “infinitesimally small” after the bird’s sudden death Friday night.

The tiny carcass has been shipped to the zoo for pathology tests to determine the cause of death. The effort to save the po’ouli is run jointly by the San Diego Zoo, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Hawaii’s Department of Land and Natural Resources.

The po’ouli is the size of a hummingbird. Its natural habitat has been ravaged by development and by feral pigs, goats, rats and the Indian mongoose.

After the bird was caught in mid-September, it was taken to the Maui Bird Conservation Center, operated by the San Diego Zoo. Lieberman said that his hunch was that the bird, thought to be at least 8 years old, died of old age.

“We are not willing to give up all hope yet” of saving the species, said Eric VanderWerf, Hawaiian bird recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Lieberman said that even if the po’ouli did not survive, the high-profile campaign to save the species was beneficial to public understanding of the danger posed to 31 other endangered bird species in Hawaii.

“Even in death it may have served a cause,” he said. “It helped bring the reality of extinction to people.”