Dec. 1, 2004, 7:16AM

Bird's death may mean end of species
Associated Press

Associated Press/
State Division of Forestry and Wildlife
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 Friday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service said Tuesday. It had recently contracted avian
malaria, but the exact cause of death won't be known until tests from the
necropsy are completed.

The remaining two po'ouli, believed to be a male and a female, haven't been
seen for nearly a year. They might 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
coordinator. "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 center, began
a search Tuesday 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 is so unique that is 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.

"Someday, when technology catches up with our fantasies, we may be
able to resurrect the po'ouli because we saved these cells,"
Lieberman said.

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