birdhistory.substack.com/p/the-100-greatest-bird-names-of-all
1 correction found
There used to be a two-letter bird in Hawaii, the Ou, but it went extinct in 1989.
1989 was the ʻōʻū’s last confirmed sighting, not a documented extinction year. Official sources describe the species as presumed or possibly extinct, meaning the extinction date is uncertain.
Full reasoning
This sentence treats 1989 as the year the ʻōʻū definitively went extinct, but the official sources distinguish between last detection and extinction date.
- Hawaiʻi’s Division of Forestry and Wildlife lists the ʻōʻū as "Presumed Extinct" and "Critically Endangered (Possibly Extinct)", not as a species known to have gone extinct in 1989.
- The Bishop Museum’s Hawaiian bird monograph likewise describes the ʻōʻū as "endangered, presumed extinct" and says it is "now presumed extinct."
- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 5-year review uses 1989 as the last detection on Kauaʻi, not as a proven extinction date.
- IUCN guidance also explains that a species’ "last seen" date is not the same thing as its extinction date; it means extinction happened sometime after that last record and before its eventual EX/CR(PE) treatment.
So the reliable wording here would be that the ʻōʻū was last confirmed in 1989 and is presumed/possibly extinct, rather than that it went extinct in 1989.
4 sources
- Division of Forestry and Wildlife: Wildlife Program | 'Ō'ū
Conservation Status: Presumed Extinct ... IUCN Red List Ranking—Critically Endangered (Possibly Extinct) ... Distribution: Possibly extinct.
- 'O'u (Psittirostra psittacea) — Bishop Museum
native resident, endemic, endangered, presumed extinct ... underwent precipitous declines and is now presumed extinct
- 5-YEAR REVIEW
extensive and ongoing survey effort that has continued to yield no observations since the last detection on Kauaʻi in 1989 warrants a change in its Federal listing status.
- IUCN Red List of Threatened Species FAQ
The 'last seen' date means the species became extinct sometime between that date and the date it was first listed as EX, EW, CR(PE) or CR(PEW) on The IUCN Red List.