It’s tough to be a po’ouli as Valentine’s Day approaches. Actually, it’s tough to be a po’ouli on any day. Scientists are doing their darnedest to save the extraordinarily rare Hawaiian honeycreeper from extinction — and right now, that means matchmaking. A team of biologists has outfitted the one known male po’ouli with a tiny radio transmitter and hopes to track him and bring one of just two known females of the species into his terrain. The plan is considered a long shot — even if the birds are caught and introduced, there’s no guarantee they’ll hit it off enough to reproduce — but it may be the last hope for what is thought to be the rarest bird in the world. Some say the species is too rare to bother trying to save, but others point to success stories like the revival of the Mauritius kestrel, a species with only four members in 1974 and as many as 600 today.
