That threat has brought together an international team that includes scientists from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington and poor coffee farmers in Venezuela, all set on rescuing it from extinction. The plan is to entice farmers to plant organic coffee groves with layers of thick branches that are inviting to the endangered songbird, which has lost a lot of its habitat.

“They don’t have many years left, unless we do something right now,” said Miguel Arvelo, a veterinarian for the Caracas-based nonprofit organization Provita, one of the groups heading up the effort.

The “cardenalito” — or “little cardinal,” as it is affectionately called — holds a special place in Venezuelan culture, the poster child of some 1,400 bird species that live in one of the world’s most biodiverse landscapes.

Once flourishing in the millions, as few as 300 remain in the wild in Venezuela, although scientists say it’s difficult to estimate their numbers.

The Red Siskin Initiative launched about three years ago on a budget of less than $100,000 from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and private groups in the United States and Venezuela.

Planting organic groves with thick branches reverses a trend among farmers who boost bean production by thinning coffee groves for more sunlight. Or they cut down the trees to plant vegetables that turn a quicker profit.

Farmers who meet the project’s strict standards will win the right to use “Bird Friendly” labels and set higher prices for their beans.

Another part of the program features a red siskin breeding center, which is being built at a private zoo in Venezuela. The zoo expects to hatch 200 of the birds next year, adding to the 25 housed at the Smithsonian. Red siskins from the center will be introduced into the coffee groves.

Although it’s still in its early stages, backers say the coffee initiative is showing positive results. Some 40 farmers in the rugged, coastal mountains of Carayaca,have stopped cutting down trees — an important first step.

Protecting the bird from poachers has been challenging. The red siskin, prized for its fiery red plumage and jet-black hood on males, can go for more than $300 on the black market. A Venezuelan law protecting the bird since the 1940s hasn’t stopped the sales. Poor Venezuelan families often capture and sell the threatened bird to illegal traffickers. The profit can feed their children for months, said biologist Jhonathan Miranda, a Provita researcher.

Scientists carefully hide the birds’ location to protect them, but they let the Associated Press photograph a small flock at a secret location.

Catching sight of them required arriving before dawn and hiding in tall grass under pouring rain. Then, the sun broke through, and they swooped in, landing one by one on tangled tree branches overhead, singing loudly.