This is bird note. Rick San Nicolas is a master feather worker carrying on a tradition of making elaborate feather garments that dates back centuries in Hawaii.

The wines felt that all the native wine birds were the most sacred. The feathers were the most sacred because they would be able to be the closest to heaven.

Rick is recreating the famous Pauu, or skirt, given to Hawaii's Princess Nahi Anna nearly 200 years ago on Maui.

The original Pauu was made mostly from the feathers of a bird called the O-O, says Marcus Honolay Marzan, the cultural advisor to the Bishop Museum in Honolulu.

What is recorded is that the people of Lahaina went and gathered the feathers on Maui itself as a symbol of their love and commitment to their chief.

And, you know, historically, there are very few examples of sightings of the O-O on the island of Maui.

Now, all O-O species are extinct due to the effects of invasive species and habitat loss. That makes the original Pauu a remarkable sign that O-Os were once present on Maui. Rick's replica version will allow native Hawaiians to experience what the Pauu was like when it was first made.

So, if you look at it at the finish farm, it will be well over 200,000 individual feathers and maybe closer to the quarter million individual feathers that will be on a piece like this too.

You can hear more about Princess Nahi Anna Anna's Pauu on the Threatened Podcast. Listen in your podcast app or at birdnote.org. I'm Ari Daniel.