Hawaiian Goose (Nene)

Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world. Liz Bonnin presents the Nene, or the endemic and rare Hawaiian goose. Visit a Wildfowl and Wetland Trust centre in the UK and it is likely you'll be mobbed by the nasal calls of one of the world's rarest birds, the Hawaiian Goose or "Ne-Ne". In the late 18th century there were around 25,000 of these neat attractive geese, with ochre cheeks and black-heads, on the Hawaiian Islands. But by the early 1950s, due to development and introduced predators, a mere 30 or so remained. A few of these remaining Nene's were taken to Slimbridge, home of Peter Scott's Wildfowl Trust as part of a captive breeding programme. They bred successfully and now many generations of geese produced there have been returned to their native islands. Their future is still precarious in the wild, but as the state bird of Hawaii the Nene's outlook is more secure today than for the last seventy years.