Fewer than 100 left — and now this tiny bird has a sanctuary

On King Island in the Bass Strait, the King Island Scrubtit — a bird with fewer than 100 individuals left in three isolated groups, rarer than the California condor or the kakapo — just got a lifeline: the Australian Wildlife Conservancy bought the Boulder Wildlife Sanctuary to protect the wet swamp paperbark forests it needs. AWC's science-based model has already helped bring the numbat back far enough to be downlisted by the IUCN; now the scrubtit gets the same treatment.