What may have been the last po’ouli died at the Maui Bird Conservation Center at 11:45 p.m. on November 26, 2004. As tragic as the loss of this species may be, its demise refocuses the importance of preserving and protecting its “essence” for future study and reflection. This is being attempted through the process of cell culture and cryopreservation at the San Diego Zoo’s department of Conservation and Research for Endangered Species (CRES).

Tissues were collected postmortem from the po`ouli, selecting organs from sites that had the most potential to grow new cells in vitro (literally in glass). Each tissue sample was cleaned, diced, divided, and incubated in various media broths to maximize the potential for growth. Avian tissues are notoriously difficult to grow, unlike mammalian cells that grow with relative ease in the incubators. After several agonizing weeks of meticulous care and frustratingly slow cell growth, the cells from the tissues surrounding the po`ouli’s eye finally began to grow and divide into new cells (pictured are these cells, called “fibroblasts”). Each cell contains the chromosomes that are literally the essence of the po`ouli. Each cell contains the complete DNA complement of a po`ouli Melamprosops phaeosoma. There are still many steps to take before these cells can be “lifted” from the broth, cryopreserved in the Frozen Zoo®, and then someday, thawed and reconstituted, long after this generation of conservationists and technicians are gone…but this first step is significant. The po`ouli may never be seen again as a living, breathing creature sharing our world of humid rain forests in Hawaii, but these living cells will always serve as a genetic reminder of what once was.

Alan Lieberman is the program director for the San Diego Zoo’s Hawaii Endangered Bird Conservation Program.

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