Lord Howe boobook than both the New Zealand and Norfolk Island subspecies. The Lord Howe boobook was restricted to Lord Howe Island where it inhabited the native forests as well as occurring around the settlements. Exactly when the Lord Howe boobook became extinct is uncertain. Boobook calls were apparently heard on the island until the 1950s, but during the 1920s boobooks from near Sydney in eastern Australia had been introduced, along with barn owls and masked owls, in an unsuccessful effort to control the black rats that had overrun the island. The rats had been accidentally introduced in June 1918 with the grounding
Penelope Diane Olsen Penelope Diane Olsen Dr Penelope Diane Olsen is an Australian ornithologist and author. She has worked with CSIRO as an experimental officer and an Honorary Research Associate as well as being an ARC Postdoctoral Fellow at the Australian National University. She is also internationally recognised as an expert on raptors and was involved in the conservation work on Norfolk Island for the Norfolk Island Boobook. She was President of the Australasian Raptor Association 1984–1989. In 1997 she was awarded the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union's D.L. Serventy Medal for excellence in published work on birds in the Australasian region. Since 2003