pasture and the pesticides and water impoundments that were used to control mosquitos found their way into the food chain, the dusky seaside sparrow population plummeted.By 1972 only two males could be found on Merritt Island, and a few hundred managed to survive on the mainland.Herbert Kale and Allan Cruickshank, two local ornithologists, concluded that the dusky was living on borrowed time unless some of the lands could be spared from conversion to pasture.The agency now had to decide what it was going to do about the dusky.Was it going to lead the bird onto the ark, or strand it ashore?The choice was not easy.In 1969 Congress had appropriated $1.3 million for acquiring endangered species habitat.Several thousand acres of Florida swamp would cost more than a million dollars.Should the Office of Endangered Species save the dusky and lose, say, the American alligator or the key deer?What Solomon could tell the agency which course to follow?In 1972, the agency purchased 2,000 acres of land for $787,000, and over the next four years, it purchased another 2,000 acres for $1 million.What followed was a tragic comedy of errors.In particular, it allowed further drainage of the land it purchased.By December 1975, only eleven males were left in the area.The agency bought another 1,500 acres but inexplicably again failed to prevent drainage on the lands.None existed on Merritt Island.In a desperate attempt to