A Scramble For Wooden Eggs

posted in: April 1991 | 0

When it comes to information on the early years of the captive `alala program, there is a virtual black hole in the official record. When Barbara Lee was dismissed by the Board, she took with her all the daily log books from 1976 to 1981 — a loss that is felt to this day by those in charge of the captive breeding program.

But that was not all Barbara Lee took. There were the wooden eggs.

In his monthly report for April 1979, Ah Fat Lee wrote that a couple living in Kamuela had “made 2 dozen wooden crow eggs and donated them to the project.” The eggs had been fashioned of cypress (to approximate the density of `alala eggs) and had been painted to resemble the real thing.

In February 1981 (at approximately the same time Fay Steele arrived and Barbara Lee was told her services were no longer needed), Ah Fat Lee was asked about the eggs. The breeding season was coming up quickly, and the wooden eggs would be needed to replace any `alala eggs removed for incubation. Ah Fat Lee said at that time that the eggs belonged to his wife.

According to DLNR records, Ron Bachman, wildlife biologist for the Hawai`i District then furnished Lee with a copy of his April 1979 report. In a memo to Bachman April 2, 1981, Ah Fat Lee said he had called the man who had made the eggs to inquire who the intended recipient was. The donor’s “specific reply was that he donated them to my wife, Barbara, and me as a personal gift,” Lee wrote. On the reverse of the memo is the statement: “We will not make any of the wooden eggs available to the Pohakuloa `alala project.”

Nor did they make any eggs available in August 1982 when one of the workers at Pohakuloa asked Ah Fat Lee for a dummy egg with which to measure an egg holder in a new incubator.

In fall of 1982, the couple that made the first set of eggs was approached and asked to make more. They graciously did so, this time of koa.

Volume 1, Number 10 April 1991

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