The Peregrine Fund operates the only two captive-bird propagation facilities in the state of Hawai`i: one at Olinda, Maui, which until March 1996 had been operated by the state; the second on Bishop Estate’s Keauhou Ranch, near the Big Island village of Volcano.
Under terms of a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, TPF has agreed to propagate and maintain “those species identified by the Service, in consultation with TPF, DOFAW [the state Division of Forestry and Wildlife] and applicable recovery teams and working groups.” In addition, the agreement obligates TPF to undertake the “rearing and hacking of `Alala and other Hawai`i forest birds.”
Despite the agreement, The Peregrine Fund has said it will decline “to participate in the captive management of adult Po`ouli collected from the wild because the mortality risks for bringing adult insect-eating songbirds into captivity are unacceptably high. If Po`ouli eggs are found, The Peregrine Fund will collect the eggs for artificial incubation. Wild adult Po`ouli would probably not adjust to living in captivity after living in the wild. They would probably not breed in a cage and are likely to suffer nutritional and stress-related problems.”
The refusal makes it extremely difficult for the state and the Fish and Wildlife Service to pursue two of the options identified in the draft environmental assessment for recovery of the Po`ouli. Those two options both involve bringing wild-caught adult Po`ouli into captivity.
With TPF having refused to accept the birds, state and federal officials approached the Honolulu Zoo. Peter Luscomb, zoo director, said he turned down the request. “We don’t have appropriate facilities,” he told Environment Hawai`i. “This isn’t an appropriate location.”
Over and above the identified risks — to the birds — there’s the possible risk to TPF’s reputation. At one of the Maui hearings on the Po`ouli plan, someone suggested that TPF might have “cold feet” owing to the high risk of failing with these birds. Alan Lieberman, head of TPF’s Hawai`i operations, denied this, saying instead that the refusal was a result of “a cool head.”
No Quarantine
Even if TPF were willing to receive adult Po`ouli, could it do so without endangering the health of other captive birds?
That is a difficult question. To prevent introduction of disease at captive facilities, a standard practice is to hold new animals in quarantine. The Olinda facility has a quarantine unit, but The Peregrine Fund is focusing its efforts almost entirely on the Keauhou facility nowadays, which lacks a quarantine facility.
The environmental assessment for the Keauhou facility indicated that a quarantine unit would be included in the second phase of construction. However, Phase II has been completed, and to date no quarantine unit exists. (A veterinary clinic was to be built in Phase I; that, too, has yet to be installed.)
A project proposal made by TPF president Bill Burnham to the Fish and Wildlife Service in 1992 also stressed the importance of a quarantine unit. That proposal, which was incorporated into the cooperative agreement, describes a “quarantine building/cages” as “a priority in FY 95 and may be built earlier depending on funding and costs.”
The Peregrine Fund now describes its program as “based on bringing eggs in from the wild.” At the time that TPF was in discussions with the state and the Fish and Wildlife Service over its proposed operations of captive propagation facilities here, no such limitation was suggested.
The Peregrine Fund has completed Phases I and II of the Keauhou facility. It now anticipates funds for Phase III. According to reports it has submitted to the Fish and Wildlife Service, Phase III will see development of a second forest bird barn, a full kitchen, and between 4 and 6 more `Alala aviaries.
Karen Rosa of the Fish and Wildlife Service says there has been some informal consultation between the Service and TPF over the elements to be included in each construction phase. She told Environment Hawai`i that the quarantine unit probably won’t be built until the last phase of construction (date uncertain).
Whenever animals exist in close quarters, the danger of a contagious disease running through the population is ever present. Without a quarantine unit, containing such disease is made more difficult.
The Peregrine Fund has experienced just such an outbreak. Aspergillosis is thought to have been responsible for the deaths of at least nine forest birds over the last two years. It reached epidemic levels this spring; between late February and early April, deaths of at least seven forest birds at Keauhou were attributed to Aspergillosis.
Multi-Millions
The Peregrine Fund has been involved with the captive rearing and release of endangered forest birds in Hawai`i since 1993. At that time, it was invited by the Fish and Wildlife Service to help with the incubation of wild `Alala (Hawaiian crow) eggs and release of the young into the wild from a hacking facility in South Kona.
Its level of involvement in the recovery of Hawaiian endangered birds has steadily increased since then. The Fish and Wildlife Service has contracted with The Peregrine Fund to build and operate the Keauhou facility, which opened for business in March 1996. Construction costs for the facility have amounted to about $3.5 million; operational costs (including the pre-Keauhou years) have come so far to about $3 million. For running Keauhou, TPF receives around $500,000 a year.
In addition to Keauhou, TPF since March 1996 has operated the Olinda captive-propagation facility. For this, it receives approximately $350,000 a year from the state, almost all of which is a pass-through of federal funds.
The total annual ecological services budget of the Hawai`i FWS office has averaged $4.47 million over the last six years, or about $27 million total. The Keauhou facility’s budget represents about a quarter of that amount — more than any other single expenditure in the Fish and Wildlife Service’s budget for Hawai`i.
Money received by TPF for the Olinda facility comes from a separate budget of the Fish and Wildlife Service, which apportions funds to states under Section 6 of the Endangered Species Act. Hawai`i receives about $700,000 a year of Section 6 funds; slightly less than half goes to TPF to run the Olinda facility.
Bonus
By paying TPF in advance for construction costs in 1994, the federal government gave TPF what amounts to a bonus of several thousand dollars. In March, TPF requested and received a $200,000 advance against construction costs for the Keauhou facility. By the end of the 1994 fiscal year, construction expenses amounted to less than $70,000.
TPF placed the funds in an interest-bearing money-market account. When TPF’s auditors discovered the extra funds, the matter of what to do with them was brought to the attention of Robert Smith, head of the Pacific Islands Ecoregion of the Fish and Wildlife Service.
In a letter to Bill Burnham, president of TPF, Smith indicated that he was agreeable to allowing TPF to keep the interest. “Since these funds were originally restricted to use on the facility in Hawai`i, I would like to see the interest earned applied to that same purpose … rather than [your] remitting the interest earned back to the federal government.”
The letter does not indicate how much interest accrued. Invoices filed by TPF with the Fish and Wildlife Service show that, for the six months between the time the advance payment was made and the end of the fiscal year, the average balance of the advance held by TPF was more than $167,000. Assuming a very modest interest rate of 10 percent a year, TPF got a bonus of some $8,350. There is no follow-up to indicate that the interest was used in Hawai`i.
— Patricia Tummons
Volume 9, Number 5 November 1998
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