The last-ditch, hands-on effort follows years of failure to get the two females and male po'ouli to breed in the wild. The efforts have included aggressive control of rats and other predators, and such fanciful measures as catching a female and delivering it to the male's territory. The female promptly flew home, and it's possible the two never met.

With only three known birds remaining, each in its own separate habitat, state and federal wildlife officials decided to take the drastic step of bringing them into captivity.

"It's a bold attempt to rescue this bird from what we think is certain extinction," said Scott Fretz, state forest bird biologist.

Crews from the Maui Forest Bird Recovery Project have been taking helicopter field trips into Maui's remote Hanawi 'ohi'a forest since February 2003, hanging delicate mist nets between the trees in attempts to catch the birds.

One problem has been that po'ouli are among the most difficult of Hawaiian forest birds to spot, both because of their muted coloring of brownish backs, pale bellies and a black head, and because they are relatively quiet. Another problem for the capture team is that all three individuals have been caught before, when they were banded and released, and they seem wary of the nets.

But on Thursday at about 4:20 p.m., one of the birds, a female believed to be about 7 years old, flew into a net. She tried to bite her captors, but seemed otherwise unperturbed, said Kirsty Swinnerton, coordinator of the project.

"She was quite feisty, but pretty calm and pretty relaxed. She seems in really good condition, and she was eating within minutes of being placed in a cloth cage," Swinnerton said. The readiness to eat and lack of obvious indication of stress are viewed as hopeful signs.

Biologists fed the bird grubs and mealworms, as well as the po'ouli's favorite food, native succineid snails, which the team quickly collected off nearby plants. Yesterday morning, the female was brought out of the forest by helicopter and delivered to the Maui Bird Conservation Center at Olinda, which is operated with state and federal funding by the San Diego Zoological Society's Center for Reproduction of Endangered Species.

The recovery team will be back in the forest in about a week to try to capture the second female. For now, they are leaving the lone male alone because he had become leery of humans. They hope that after a period of relative peace, he'll be easier to catch.

The San Diego Zoo has experienced success with breeding several related Hawaiian forest birds, but the po'ouli will be a challenge, both because it is genetically quite distinct from most of the other Hawaiian honeycreepers and because there are so few to work with.

"Establishing a breeding pair of po'ouli may be the most challenging task we've ever attempted. We have successfully bred several Hawaiian bird species, including the 'alala, puaiohi and palila, and even reintroduced them into the wild, but to start off with only three birds, all of which are at least 6 years old, just increases the difficulties," said Alan Lieberman, the zoo's avian conservation coordinator.