Animals: Escape from Extinction

Winston E. Banko combines business with pleasure. Professionally, he is a biologist, stationed in Hawaii, bird watching for the U.S. Department of the Interior. It therefore gave him special pleasure when, while hacking his way through an island rain forest in search of rare biological specimens, he spotted a bird with a "yellow posterior and a peculiar, sickle-shaped bill." The bird was the Mauinukupuu (pronounced noo-koo-poo-oo), which had been considered extinct since 1896.

Because of Banko's discovery, the Maui nukupuu was removed from the Interior Department's roster of extinct animals and put...

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