I guess I have a little news to tell before I talk about these birds... Many will probably notice that my 20-yr old Renderosity name changed from "KenG" to "Ken_Gilliland". This is because my old publisher, Hivewire3D, is closing its store and I'm moving all my products to Renderosity at the start of January 2021. I've wanted to change to my real name for some time and this move was the perfect time to finally do it. Okay, the po'o-uli... this image is from my updated "Songbird ReMix Threatened, Endangered, Extinct Volume 2" set which should appear late December briefly at HW, then at its new home, Renderosity. This update includes a reworked model with updated rigging, controls, morphs and textures. All my updates are free to those those that have already purchased it (see my transfer program at songbirdremix.com). When I first released SBRM TEE v2 in 2007, there were possibily 2 male Po'o'-uli left on the planet. The last female died in 2004. Sadly, now they are extinct. In 1973, the estimated population was felt to be less than 200 birds. The dramatic population decline has been attributed to a number of factors, including habitat loss, mosquito-borne diseases, predation by imported pigs, rats, domestic cats, and mongooses and a decline in the native tree snails that the Po’o-uli relies on for food. Hawaiian flora and fauna had no defenses for what man brought to the islands (such as antibodies for avian malaria or the knowledge that a bird should be cautious around a domestic cat). Now, endemic birds to Hawai'i can be mostly found above the "mosquito line" and as global warming continue, that line grows ever higher. A 2018 study recommended declaring the species extinct, citing bird population decline patterns and the lack of any confirmed sightings since 2004, and in 2019, the species was declared extinct. In appearance, the sexes were slightly dimorphic; adult males were creamy white on their breasts while females were grayish. Their nests were built of twigs and mosses and were located in leafy branches of Ohi'a-lehua trees. Generally, 1-2 eggs were laid. Po’o-uli, in Hawaiian loosely translates, “Dark Head” or “Bandit Mask”. There was a desperate attempt to save this species... “In 2002, a female was captured and taken to a male's home range in an attempt to get them to breed. The female, however, had flown back to her own nest, which was a mile and a half away, by the next day. There was also a ten-day expedition which was scheduled to begin on April 27, 2004. The goal of this was to capture all three birds, and bring them to a bird conservation center on the island in the hope they would produce offspring. On September 9, 2004, a male Po’o-uli was captured and taken to the Maui Bird Conservation Center in Olinda, in an attempt to captively breed the bird. However, biologists could not find a mate for the male before it died of avian malaria on November 28, 2004. Biologists are now searching for the two remaining birds, which have not been seen for over a year and are probably dead too. Tissue samples have been taken from the male for possible future cloning, but as neither birds of the opposite sex are now available nor natural behavior can be imprinted on possible cloned individuals (assuming that cloning of birds will actually be established as a working technique, which currently is not the case), this does not seem probable. As such efforts would likely compete with conservation funding of extant bird species, it may not even be desirable as a cloning attempt would both be highly likely to fail and at the same time jeopardize the survival of other highly threatened species”. (VanderWerf et al. (2006)). Rendered in Firefly without postwork. Models include Flink's Skydome and my SBRM Threatened v2 and Nature's Wonders O'hia Lehua plant sets.