Kauaʻi ʻōʻō
(Moho braccatus)
Imagine standing in a subtropical forest on the island of Kauai, sometime in the mid-1980s, listening to a bird singing slowly and somewhat mournfully. After every few notes, the bird pauses, seemingly waiting for a response, but then he picks up and sings again when no response is heard.
You are listening to the song of a male Kauaʻi ʻōʻō, a duetting species in which the male and female would normally sing together. The pauses arise as the male waits for a female to respond. But there is never a response because there are no females left. You are listening to the last bird of this species – a lone male with no mate.
At one time there had been several species of ʻōʻō on the Hawaiian Islands – more-or-less one on each large island in the archipelago. But over the years each disappeared, driven to extinction by introduced mammalian predators, deforestation, and mosquito-borne diseases.
By the middle of the 20th Century, only the Kauaʻi ʻōʻō remained, and even that species numbered fewer than forty individuals. By 1981, only a single breeding pair remained. The female of that pair disappeared during Hurricane Iwa (1982), leaving the male alone. His lone song was last heard in 1987.
Extensive survey efforts over the years have revealed no more ʻōʻō birds. The Kauaʻi ʻōʻō was officially removed from the Endangered Species List in 2023; not because it had been rescued, but because it is now considered extinct.