LIFE may imitate art. Inspired by Dr. Michael Crichton's best-selling novel "Jurassic Park," students at the Hastings Boys High School in New Zealand began a project to see if they could revive the extinct Huia, a bird that is featured in their school motto.

And schoolboy fantasies sometimes do come true.

Beginning today, scientists and ethicists will meet in Hastings, New Zealand, to consider the technical feasibility and moral permissibility of reviving the Huia, a bird driven to extinction early this century.

"This will be a defining event for our global community," said Dr. Rhys Michael Cullen, a New Zealand physician. "There are deep moral issues involved but so far everyone seems quite keen on the idea."

Among conference participants are The Rev. Dr. Norman Ford, director of the Caroline Chisholm Centre for Health Ethics in Melbourne, Australia; Prof. Diana Hill, who has been investigating the cloning of the Moa, another extinct bird and Dr. David Wells, a bioresearcher and leader of the team which used cloning and in-vitro fertilization to save the Enderby cattle, unique for its ability to survive on a diet of seaweed, from extinction.

Students from Hastings will also provide two- to five-minute introductory presentations.

The Huia is one of three species of wattle bird (a wattle is a fleshy growth like the one that hangs from the neck of a turkey) unique to New Zealand.

About the size of a magpie, the male Huia had a short, blunt beak, while the female had a long, curved bill. The different appearance of males and females led to their initial classification as separate species.

The Huia was not adept at flying. It lived beneath the forest canopy and nested in tree trunks or in hollows on the ground. The Huia population began to decline as Europeans arrived in New Zealand and cleared land for pastures, cut down forests and introduced natural predators. Hunters also sought Huia to serve a ready market for stuffed and mounted examples of the birds.

A British royal visit to New Zealand in 1901 sealed the fate of the Huia. A Huia feather was placed in the Duke of Windsor's hatband to signify his royal rank. A photograph of the event printed in London newspapers made a Huia feather in a hatband a fashion necessity. First priced at a shilling (few cents) each, the cost of each feather eventually reached five pounds (about US$10) as the birds vanished from New Zealand. The last official sighting of a Huia occurred in 1907 and it was soon declared extinct in the 1920s.

If one can be found, the nucleus of a cell removed from a taxidermic specimen of a Huia could be fused with the ovum of another bird to start the regeneration. In Scotland, scientists used a cell implant to clone "Dolly" the sheep. Alternatively, scientists could attempt to create a clone from a genetic template of the Huia, similar to the process of reviving dinosaurs from extinction as described in "Jurassic Park."

Environmental News Network