Not knowing he was the last of his kind, heath hen Booming Ben spent every day searching for a mate. His quest for a companion that didn’t exist ended when he vanished from the area he occupied at Martha’s Vineyard. Assumed to be dead, the 8-year-old fowl’s disappearance marked the extinction of his species in 1932.

Photographer Noppadol Paothong is 82 years late in terms of fighting for the protection of the heath hen. But that hasn’t stopped him from working to protect Booming Ben’s western cousin, the greater sage grouse, which can be spotted in Wyoming.

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