century already, being "practically extinct" in San Mateo County in 1916. By the time the stadium was constructed in the 1950s, there was no remnant of the huge, local flocks of "candlestick birds" left. The long-billed curlew was also formerly a plentiful wintering bird on the East Coast of the United States, and John James Audubon's painting of the species was in fact of individuals he sighted near Charleston, South Carolina. However, market hunting and breeding habitat loss nearly wiped out this population, and presently only a small "ghost" or relict population of less than a hundred birds still winters on the East Coast, and this population has yet to recover. It is possible that this wintering population may have consisted largely of now-extirpated birds that bred on the eastern Great Plains, and the disappearance of those birds may tie in to the near disappearance of the Atlantic wintering population, with the present Atlantic wintering population being the descendants of the last survivors of the eastern Great Plains breeders. In December 2015, one such "ghost bird" was successfully captured off the coast of Georgia and fitted with a satellite tag with plans to analyze its migration routes, with it taking flight in April 2016. References External links Long-billed curlew Status Assessment and Conservation Plan – U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Long-billed curlew Species Account – Cornell Lab of Ornithology Long-billed curlew - Numenius americanus – USGS Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter Numenius (bird) Birds described in 1812 Taxa named by Johann Matthäus Bechstein