The greater bird of paradise was in trouble, and the reason perched atop the heads of fashionable women across Europe and America. In the early 1900s, the bird's extraordinary plumage -- long, cascading golden flank feathers that males display in elaborate courtship dances -- was among the most sought-after materials in the millinery trade. Hunters in New Guinea were killing the birds in staggering numbers, and no international protections existed. Ingram, who had purchased Little Tobago in 1908, saw an opportunity that depended on distance. If a breeding population could be established far from the hunters, the species might survive even if the New Guinea populations collapsed. Twenty-four males and twenty-four females made the journey, with two additional females added later. Ingram released them into Little Tobago's dry forest, and waited.

The birds adapted. Little Tobago's warm climate, dense vegetation, and absence of predators proved hospitable enough for the colony to sustain itself year after year. After Ingram's death in 1924, his heirs honored his vision by deeding the island to the Government of Trinidad and Tobago on May 28, 1928, with the stipulation that it remain a bird sanctuary in perpetuity. The government declared it a protected natural sanctuary the following year. In 1958, a National Geographic film crew traveled to Little Tobago and captured the birds on camera -- footage that became the primary visual record of the colony in its prime. The birds of paradise, with their shimmering golden displays, had become the island's most famous residents, and Little Tobago earned its alternate name: Bird of Paradise Island.

Hurricane Flora struck on October 3, 1963, one of the deadliest Atlantic hurricanes of the twentieth century. The storm devastated Little Tobago's dry forest canopy, shredding the vegetation that sheltered the bird-of-paradise colony. There are no reliable sightings of the birds after Flora passed. Whether the hurricane killed the remaining birds directly or destroyed enough habitat to make survival impossible, the result was the same. A population that had never been large -- descended from fewer than fifty founders, with limited genetic diversity from the start -- could not recover from such a blow. Scattered reports trickled in over the following years, but by 1981 no more sightings were recorded. The population is presumed extinct. The experiment that had worked for over half a century ended in a single night of wind.

Little Tobago lost its birds of paradise, but it did not lose its wildness. The island remains an Important Bird Area designated by BirdLife International, and it shelters one of the richest seabird colonies in the southern Caribbean. Red-billed tropicbirds nest on its cliffs, their long white tail streamers trailing behind them as they return from fishing runs over open water. Brown boobies, laughing gulls, brown noddies, sooty terns, and bridled terns all breed here. Magnificent frigatebirds patrol overhead, harassing the smaller birds into dropping their catches -- a behavior birdwatchers cross oceans to witness. On land, rufous-vented chachalacas call from the forest understory and copper-rumped hummingbirds dart between blossoms. Green iguanas bask on rocks beside giant ameivas and rainbow whiptails, while large terrestrial hermit crabs lumber across the forest floor. The shallow waters between Tobago and Little Tobago, especially Angel Reef near Goat Island, draw snorkelers and divers to coral gardens crowded with tropical fish. The island Ingram bought to save one species has become a sanctuary for many others.