Nick Page, a genial New Zealander with a sunburned face and curly black hair, holds a photograph of Assumption Island’s Most Wanted: a red-whiskered bulbul, a bird about the size of a cardinal with a black Mohawk crest and a fiery red tuft of feathers behind each eye. Since 2013, a team of conservation rangers have shot and netted 5,278 redwhiskered bulbuls on this four-square-mile comma of land 250 miles north of Madagascar. There is now one bulbul left.
Page has come within range of 5,279 twice, but bad luck prevented a shot. On the first occasion, a kite flew overhead, spooking his quarry, and on the second, a rainstorm struck. Such are the trials of the everyday sniper. But Page, a young conservation graduate, says that “with a bit…