Nene (bird)

By 1950 only around 30 nēnē were left, making Hawaii's state bird the most endangered waterfowl on the planet. Peter Scott and his colleagues had three birds sent to Slimbridge in England to breed, and in 1979 Scott released 200 nēnē on Maui. Between 1967 and 1990 more than 2,000 captive-bred geese were released across several Hawaiian islands, and the state's 2025 estimate was 4,323 birds. In 2019 the goose was moved from endangered to threatened under US law. Introduced mongooses killed many of the early releases, and cars remain a real cause of death, so the nēnē is safe from extinction for now rather than secure.