The tale of the heath hen is a Vineyard story.

Buried deep within the woods of the Manuel Correllus State Forest is a statue of Booming Ben, the world’s final heath hen. Once common, the species was hunted to near-extinction in the 1870s.

A single male heath hen, almost certainly the sole survivor of its species in the whole world, showed itself this week.

Somewhere on the great plain of Martha’s Vineyard death and the heath hen have met. One day, just as usual, there was a bird called the heath hen, and the next day there was none. How he came to his end no human being can know. But the death of wild birds is a violent death. The eye becomes dimmed, the beat of the wings lags ever so little, the star of fortune blinds for a fraction of a second it is enough. An enemy strikes and death has come.

An effort to bring the heath hen back into existence is now the leading de-extinction project in the world, putting the Vineyard at the forefront of new technology in wildlife conservation.

The first phase of a ground-breaking project to bring the heath hen back from extinction has been successfully completed, scientists said this week. The path to bringing back the bird is getting more tangible, and scientists say the heath hen could be “the gateway bird” for avian de-extinction.

A complex and groundbreaking project that aims to bring back the heath hen is advancing “at lightning speed,” scientists said this week.

Bringing back an extinct species raises a whirlwind of questions — technical, ethical and financial. Would it be possible? Should it be done?