The Taming of the Crow

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In 1976, the same year that `alala were transferred to Pohakuloa, one Barbara Churchill began working at the facility as a volunteer. By January 1977, she had begun to assist in their feeding. Her ties to the captive propagation program were cemented further with her marriage to Ah Fat Lee, a state employee who had worked in the nene propagation program since 1955.

Files at the Department of Land and Natural Resources attest to the time and financial support Barbara Lee provided. She paid for travel for herself and her husband to the mainland, to consult with experts in bird propagation there. She even brought one of them and his wife to Pohakuloa for at three-week stay. She made regular gifts of 50-pound bags of Trout Chow. (Before it was deemed to have too high a protein content, Trout Chow was part of the `alala diet.)

In February 1978, responding to the request of then-Board Chairman William Thompson, the Board of Land and Natural Resources approved Lee as a “biological consultant” to the Division of Fish and Game. Starting March 1, 1978, she received a stipend of $75 a month.

The Morning Star Knows

Lee’s earliest major run-in with the Department of Land and Natural Resources came in 1979 over her disposition of the body of a bird named Eleu. Eleu had died on June 21, after a two-and-a-half day illness. According to a memo Lee wrote to Ronald Walker, chief of the wildlife branch within the Division of Fish and Game, “the final four hours of [Eleu’s] life included weakness so pronounced she couldn’t stand or crouch comfortably — so I held her; unremitting diarrhea; inability to breathe or swallow easily, and wrenching, painful convulsions every 10-12 minutes.”

Lee took the bird’s corpse to Honolulu and, she wrote, “helped arrange swift and thorough pathologic examinations.” But Lee feared that Eleu’s fate would be “a freezer for an unspecified period of time and eventual transshipment to the mainland at some future date.”

After the pathologic examinations had ended, she said, “my maternal and ancestral feelings took over.” She returned to the Big Island and buried the bird on the slopes of Hualalai. “Eleu’s bones are, with dinity [sic] and love, in a place known only to the morning star,” Lee wrote Walker. Lee was reprimanded — her action was inappropriate as well as a violation of federal law — but she stayed on at Pohakuloa.

Public Disagreements

Lee took exception to some of the aspects of the state and federal `alala recovery efforts and, in 1980, began to go public with her dissent. Among other things, she convinced a manager of the Bishop Estate not to allow federal officials access to estate-owned land.

By October 1980, Ron Bachman, DLNR’s wildlife biologist for the Hawai`i Island district spoke to Lee about her public criticisms. In a follow-up memo, he wrote: “Appeal is proper and may be pursued using the channels of communication provided within the department via labor union or direct contact with decision makers/changers. More active dissent and appeal to those people outside the department are fine but you should disassociate yourself from our organization first. I think we look foolish as an organization with everyone pulling in different directions even after decisions are made.”

In January 1981, the DLNR entered into an agreement with the federal Fish and Wildlife Service to hire an aviculturist to take charge of the `alala in captivity. Lee, at the same time, was told her services would no longer be needed and locks on the cages were changed to deny her access to the birds.

At the February 27, 1981 meeting of the Board of Land and Natural Resources, Lee’s “commission” of 1978 was revoked. Lee challenged her dismissal. According to minutes of the meeting, she said she “was mandated by this Board to care for the `alala.” According to the recollection of Board member Moses Kealoha, however, former Board Chairman Thompson had recommended Lee be awarded with some official status in 1978 “because of her progress with a particular crow who walks on a human shoulder and onto an arm.” DOFAW Administrator Libert Landgraf told the Board that the `alala program was shifting from maintenance and behavior studies to “intensive propagation,” and, as such, while Lee’s “unceasing dedication and unselfish devotion” was appreciated, it was time to move on.

The Board agreed, but Kealoha (according to the minutes) “informed Mrs. Lee that … she will still be welcomed to work with the birds.” Landgraf said he had “absolutely no problem” with that, and suggested that the Board set the conditions on visitation rights.

To follow up, Ono had prepared and had sent to Board members a draft letter setting forth three scenarios for Lee’s future involvement with the `alala and responding to other allegations Lee had made at the February 27 Board meeting. “Version 1” allowed visits “occasionally … defined here as twice a week for up to two hours per visit.” Version 2 allowed the same kind of privileges in the non-breeding season. “However, during the breeding season (February through August) access to the project must continue to be on an ‘invitation only’ basis as decided by the aviculturist-in-charge (`alala). Direct access into the cages will continue to be controlled by the aviculturist in charge of the `alala…”

Version 3 was the most restrictive. “You are welcome to come into the project at the invitation of the aviculturist in charge of the `alala, just like any other requests from the general public are channeled, and while there be in his company…”

Lee was notified somehow of the draft letter. Taking it as her license to visit the birds, she then, on March 7, 1981, let herself into the `alala cages. When Fay Steele, the aviculturist responsible for the `alala, found her there, and was told by her that she was there by authority of the Board, he resigned forthwith.

‘On Tape, Of Course’

On March 9, Ron Bachman, the district wildlife biologist, informed Lee, in the presence of two other DLNR employees, that “she better keep away from Hi`ialo, Umi, Lu`ukia, Ulu and Mana,” the five `alala residing at Pohakuloa. In a memo to Landgraf, Bachman said he told her that until he was notified otherwise by the Land Board, Lee would be able to visit them only at the request of the district wildlife biologist. Lee “has gone into the project twice without permission,” on March 7 and again on March 8, he wrote. Finally, Bachman told Landgraf, he had warned Lee that “one more uninvited excursion to the project will result in trespass charges being brought against her.”

Lee protested. In a long letter to Board Chairman Susumu Ono April 1, 1981, she stated that Fay Steele, “my replacement, … approved and welcomed my assistance.” He left, she said, because “he resented being ‘politically used'” to get rid of her. Bachman “refused to acknowledge the Board’s permission of entry,” Lee complained. He “demanded my keys to the project, and was extremely rude and insulting, in front of witnesses. The entire episode is on tape, of course…”

Ono responded April 21, 1981, expressing “dismay over your actions following the Board action of February 27, 1981.”

“As you will recall,” he wrote, “the Board agreed with your request that you be allowed to visit the captive rearing project at Pohakuloa. You will also remember that the Board requested that this permission be in writing and that the conditions under which you could visit the area be spelled out… A draft communiqué from me to you was completed and was… to be individually discussed with members of the Board…

“However, your unilateral action of entering the captive propagation pens … before receiving an official Board notification in writing is extremely regrettable. The action of the district staff in refusing you further entry on March 8th was entirely understandable and is supported by the Board.”

Acting “on behalf of the Board of Land and Natural Resources,” Ono said, he was instructing Lee that henceforth her visits to the birds in their pens could occur only if Bachman granted her “specific permission to do so.”

Incomplete Records

That might have been the policy, but Lee was not so easily daunted. Ah Fat Lee, Barbara Lee’s husband, was the DLNR employee responsible for overall daily management of the Pohakuloa facility. The Lees lived on the premises. Although the state had hired emergency help to watch the `alala on closed-circuit television (installed at Steele’s suggestion), they were in no position of authority to deny Barbara Lee entry. Moreover, Bachman himself departed during the 1981 breeding season for a stint in Borneo.

When another bird, Ulu, became sick in June, Barbara Lee apparently convinced a consulting veterinarian that the bird was ill owing to her absence. With the consent of Ah Fat Lee, Barbara Lee took custody of the bird. Ulu is thought to have died July 2 at Lee’s house. Lee is thought to have buried the bird as she did Eleu — at a spot on Hualalai known to her alone.

There is a certain vagueness to this period of Pohakuloa history. While Barbara Lee seems to have always taken copious notes on `alala behavior, the DLNR’s own files do not provide a paper trail indicating what occurred during this period. Neither Ah Fat Lee nor Barbara Lee seems to have provided the Hawai`i District office or the Honolulu office with memos, reports or letters relating the events of this time.

Dovetailing Interests

Lee and several others from the Big Island who shared her viewpoints joined the Hawai`i Audubon Society around the time she was relieved of her official status by the Land Board. Lee herself was elected to the Society’s Board of Directors. A resolution adopted by that Board on February 9, 1982, shows Lee’s influence in the recommendation that the state’s captive breeding program “employ a ‘least manipulative strategy’ for the 1982 breeding season (i.e., that removal of eggs or young birds for incubation and/or hand-raising be used only as a last resort technique, instead allowing the captive breeding birds to incubate their own eggs and raise their own young)” – this despite the manifold failure of the captive birds to do just that. As Walker, the state’s chief wildlife biologist, wrote his boss, Libert Landgraf, given “the lack of success over five years in allowing the adults to ‘do their thing’ and the success in 1981 of ‘manipulating,’ this approach doesn’t make sense.”

Lee’s greatest impact may have been with the private landowners. Her views — that state and federal efforts to save the `alala have done more harm than good — dovetail nicely with their own desire to avoid having the state possibly limit activities on their land. Lee has become an advisor on matters concerning `alala to Cynthia Salley, one of the owners of McCandless Ranch.

Volume 1, Number 10 April 1991

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