In 1963, a decision was made by NASA to flood a vast area of marshland on Merritt Island in eastern Florida as a means of controlling the mosquito population around the Kennedy Space Center. Sadly, Merritt Island was also one of the last strongholds of the dusky seaside sparrow, a small dark-colored songbird, and when the land was flooded, so too was the sparrows’ main breeding ground. Drainage of the marshes around the St. Johns River for a highway project also contributed to habitat loss. The birds’ population collapsed, and in the years that followed, the species struggled to regain its numbers. By 1979, only five birds—all males—remained in the wild, and the sparrow was finally declared extinct in 1990.