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Racing to Save 2 Samoan Endemics

10,000 Birds

Sadly, that is indeed the situation in Samoa, where the Manumea , or Tooth-billed Pigeon , numbers fewer than 200 individuals. But that tragedy is compounded when the species at risk is a country’s national bird. Americans of a certain age will recall how close their country came to losing the Bald Eagle.).

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Armchair Splits in the Pacific

10,000 Birds

The Wattled Honeyeater is a species, or now more accurately a genus, found in eastern Melanesia (Fiji) and in western Polynesia (Samoa and Tonga). In spite of the bird extinctions that have plagued the islands of the Pacific, it doesn’t seem to have suffered that much; I saw it in gardens in both Fiji and Tonga.

Tonga 174
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Restless New Zealand Fantails

10,000 Birds

The family also reaches into India and as far east as samoa and Fiji. The New Zealand Fantail was once placed with the Grey Fantail of Australia, but are now treated as separate, because of science.

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Animal Legal Defense Fund Ranks States on Animal Protection

Critter News

And the worst: Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, Arkansas, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Northern Mariana Islands, South Dakota, Wyoming You can check out the whole report on their web site. Among the best: California, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Oregon.

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History repeating itself

10,000 Birds

The two endemic species found in Tonga are not found in these islands, and the other species present are also found on more traditional destinations of Fiji and Samoa. I wasn’t there for birding per se, just a chance to get away from New Zealand’s winter in a sunny tropical island.

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Purple Swamphen: Supertramp or superspecies?

10,000 Birds

Dark blackish swamphens occur from eastern Indonesia across Australia, Melanesia, southern Micronesia, and Polynesia as far east as American Samoa, having reached some of these islands only in the last few hundred years and, in the case of New Zealand at least, recolonizing islands previously settled by their cousins.

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The complete guide to Dodo relatives, living and dead

10,000 Birds

Thankfully not extinct: Western Crowned-Pigeon ( Goura cristata ) at the National Zoo © David J.