Rajen Sookhareea from Mauritius' National Parks and Conservation Service holds echo parakeets in Black River, Mauritius, April 16, 2008. Once famous for the extinction of the dodo, Mauritius has had remarkable conservation success since then, using intensive and cutting edge techniques to save several species including the pink pigeon and the Mauritius echo parakeet. Part of the problem for many of these birds is that they evolved without any natural predators, making them vulnerable to the arrival of man some 400 years ago. Picture taken April 16, 2008. REUTERS/Ed Harris (MAURITIUS) 

Jason Malham, a New Zealander who has coordinated parakeet work for the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation, descends from a tree after checking the nesting site of a Mauritius Echo Parakeet Black River Gorge national park September 11, 2007. In the 1980s, there were only about 10 left alive. But, in a rare success story, a two-decade conservation programme in a wooded corner of Mauritius has brought the Echo Parakeet back from the brink of extinction. It is one of the only good news stories in Wednesday's IUCN Red List -- a list of threatened species compiled by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources -- which downgraded the species to "Endangered" from "Critically Endangered" in its last report. Picture taken September 11, 2007. REUTERS/Ed Harris (MAURITIUS) 

A Mauritius Echo Parakeet rests in Black River Gorge national park September 11, 2007. In the 1980s, there were only about 10 left alive. But, in a rare success story, a two-decade conservation programme in a wooded corner of Mauritius has brought the Echo Parakeet back from the brink of extinction. It is one of the only good news stories in Wednesday's IUCN Red List -- a list of threatened species compiled by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources -- which downgraded the species to "Endangered" from "Critically Endangered" in its last report. Picture taken September 11, 2007. REUTERS/Ed Harris (MAURITIUS) 

A Mauritius Echo Parakeet rests in Black River Gorge national park September 11, 2007. In the 1980s, there were only about 10 left alive. But, in a rare success story, a two-decade conservation programme in a wooded corner of Mauritius has brought the Echo Parakeet back from the brink of extinction. It is one of the only good news stories in Wednesday's IUCN Red List -- a list of threatened species compiled by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources -- which downgraded the species to "Endangered" from "Critically Endangered" in its last report. Picture taken September 11, 2007. REUTERS/Ed Harris (MAURITIUS) 

An Echo Parakeet sits outside a nesting box at the Black River Gorges national park in Mauritius September 11, 2007. In the 1980s, there were only about 10 left alive. But, in a rare success story, a two-decade conservation programme in a wooded corner of Mauritius has brought the Echo Parakeet back from the brink of extinction. Picture taken September 11, 2007. REUTERS/Ed Harris (MAURITIUS) 

A tiny Mauritius Fody which benefits from protection and supplementary feeding in Ile Aux Aigrettes, a small, wooded island less than one kilometre (0.6 miles) from the Mauritian mainland's southern coast, is seen in Ile Aux Aigrettes March 8, 2007. Safe from predators, two critically endangered and endemic species the Mauritius Fody and the hefty Pink Pigeon have had their numbers increased to a few hundred each from just a handful. In the past twenty years, Mauritius has also saved the Echo Parakeet and the Mauritius Kestrel which down to four birds was the world's rarest in 1974, but has been boosted to 1,000 free-flying kestrels at present, MWF officials say. Picture taken Marcn 8, 2007. REUTERS/Ed Harris (MAURITIUS)