Remembering Orange Band, the last dusky seaside sparrow

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Pour one out for Orange Band, the last Dusky Seaside Sparrow, died on this day in 1987.

The dusky seaside sparrow was first categorized as a species in 1873, after its discovery on March 17, 1872, by Charles Johnson Maynard. Its dark coloration and distinct song, which is introduced by a buzz rather than the discrete clicks heard in Ammospiza maritima mirabilis and has been described as "insect-like" by ornithologist William Post, distinguish it as a subspecies from other seaside sparrows. Found in the marshes of Florida's Atlantic Coast on Merritt Island and the upper St. Johns River, the dusky seaside sparrow was geographically isolated from other seaside sparrows. It was categorized as a subspecies in 1873. Even though the dusky's mitochondrial DNA is the same as the mitochondrial DNA of other seaside sparrow populations, DNA testing by itself does not demonstrate that its subspecies classification is undeserving. In 1981, only five dusky seaside sparrows remained, all being males. Conservation efforts were made by trying to breed the remaining duskies with Scott's seaside sparrows in order to create half dusky hybrid offspring. "Unfortunately, although the Fish and Wildlife Service initially supported the crossbreeding program, it withdrew its support due to Interior's hybrid policy". Due to only the males being left, even though duskies could be crossbred with other seaside sparrows, there would never be another pure dusky seaside sparrow again.

They enlisted the help of Disney World to try and save the last few individuals

The story of the last Dusky seaside sparrow and Disney began in 1983, when the group tried to save the last living birds of the species. Because of the high decline of dusky seasides sparrows, the last four living birds of the species were taken to the Walt Disney World Resort. However, by March 31, 1986, only one bird named "Orange Band" remained. The reasons why he was named like that was because he was blind in one eye. Despite that disadvantage, he managed to live nine years. But, sadly, the story of the last Dusky seaside sparrow and Disney ended up in tragedy, as the unique songs from this bird have been lost forever.

Orange Band lasted as long as he could but finally succumbed.

Despite being blind in one eye, "Orange Band" reached an extreme old age for a sparrow, living at least eight years, and possibly as many as thirteen, before being found dead on June 17, 1987. In the hopes that cloning would someday give scientists another chance at saving the subspecies, the heart and liver of "Orange Band" were cryopreserved, and his body was preserved in alcohol at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

After the death of the final "pure" dusky sparrow, the breeding program was discontinued due to the fact that it was thought the hybrids that existed could not reproduce to create dusky sparrows, since they did not share the proper mtDNA that dusky sparrows possess. However, research done on a similar species known as Passerella iliaca, or the fox sparrow, was able to show that some subspecies of one plumage group had the plumage of another despite having the "wrong" mtDNA type. This potentially meant that if the breeding program was continued with the dusky sparrow hybrids, sparrows with the same color plumage as the dusky sparrows would eventually be produced. Unfortunately, shortly after the breeding program was halted, the remaining hybrid sparrows either died or escaped captivity, leading to the final extinction of the taxon.

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