An adult Fatu Hiva monarch Photo: Benjamin Ignace
A project has been set up to save a rare French Polynesian bird from extinction.
The Fatu Hiva monarch, a type of flycatcher, is down to 19 birds and five breeding pairs.
Endemic to the island within The Marquesas Islands it is named after, the Fatu Hiva monarch - a type of flycatcher - is French Polynesia's most endangered bird and one of the world's rarest species.
Its numbers have been decimated over decades by ship rats, which arrived on Fatu Hiva in the 1980s, and feral cats, and now also by avian malaria.
The project to save the bird is a joint effort between Auckland Zoo and the Société d'Ornithologie de Polynésie (Polynesian Ornithological Society).
Society biologists are monitoring eggs laid in nests in the 29-hectare area of a densely forested valley. The eggs are being collected for incubating, hatching, and all going well, chick rearing, in new purpose-built facilities designed by Zoo staff.
If successfully reared, the fledglings will be released into a predator and mosquito-proof aviary.
One egg was retrieved from a nest of an older breeding pair, artificially incubated, and successfully hatched last week, but the chick died at at two days old.
Auckland Zoo said on Monday two other breeding pairs were expected to lay any day.
The emergency project will attempt to establish an ex-situ (outside of the wild) breeding programme on Fatu Hiva Island, 1100km north-east of Tahiti - the first time this has been attempted with a monarch species.
Auckland Zoo's curator of birds Juan Cornejo said the population hasn't been able to grow fast enough and remains at a critically small size. In addition, three of the current five breeding females are now aged over 13 years - and possibly nearing the end of their reproductive lives.
"All of this puts us in a race against time to save the Fatu Hiva from extinction," Dr Cornejo said.
"This first-ever ex-situ breeding programme for a monarch is both critical and challenging, and I think we all feel the pressure and responsibility of having in our hands the chance to turn around the fate of a species."