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Pacific News Minute: 2 native Guam species declared extinct

A bridled white-eye bird
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
A bridled white-eye bird

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has officially declared two native Guam species extinct.

The agency has issued a final rule removing the little Mariana fruit bat and bridled white-eye bird from the list of species protected under the Endangered Species Act.

The final delisting also includes several birds native to Hawaiʻi, including the large Kauaʻi thrush, Molokaʻi creeper and the poʻouli.

The agency attributed the extinction of the two Guam species to predation by the brown tree snake, loss of habitat and increased hunting pressure.

The Pacific Island Times reported that the bridled white-eye and little Mariana fruitbat were both listed as endangered in August of 1984 and were included in a recovery plan that came too late in 1990.

Only three specimens of the little Mariana fruitbat have ever been collected on Guam.

The agency said earliest records indicated that the species was already rare in the early 1900s.

The bridled white-eye bird was last observed in 1983, according to the Wildlife Service.

Endemic only to Guam, it was a tiny green and yellow forest bird, weighing only about a third of an ounce — lighter than a pencil. The bird had a characteristic white circular ring around each eye.

It was reported to be one of the more common Guam bird species between the early 1900s and the 1930s.

Derrick Malama is the local anchor of Morning Edition.
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