In 2016, Neuspiller and hydraulic engineer Ricardo Petroni started crowdfunding an expedition to the island hoping to perform scuba diving, drone data collection, and soil and plant analysis; however, their fundraising attempts failed, reaching only US$9,898 of their US$50,000 goal. On 10 October 2016, Kickstarter eventually declared the fundraising campaign unsuccessful.

you know in a better world there would easily be plenty of grant money for such an interesting mystery to be solved

That is wild. Nature is just crazy sometimes.