State Must Live Down Past If `Alala Is To Have a Future

posted in: April 1991 | 0

“I arrived on the slopes of North Kona about 3500 feet elevation late on the afternoon of June 18… At twilight… I heard repeated calling in a location I had not particularly associated with crow activity before. Upon investigation, I found one young crow perched on a low limb of a fallen tree. This bird had observable lesions on bill and head. Not knowing the flight capability of this individual I returned to my vehicle to wait for darkness, after which I returned with my battery lantern to pick this bird off its perch… The next morning, in checking a known nest site, I encountered another young crow similarly afflicted. It flushed from its perch upon approach and I was finally able to run down and capture this bird also.”

So wrote Winston Banko, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in a letter June 23, 1970, to the administrator of the state Division of Fish and Game. And so began official efforts to raise `alala, Hawai`i’s endangered native crow, in captivity. (At least two `alala had been captured in the 1950s and displayed at the Honolulu Zoo. There being is no outward difference in the appearance of male and female `alala, the sex of the zoo birds was never determined. In any case, they were not a breeding pair. By 1964, both were dead, leaving no progeny.)

The two young birds captured in 1970 were diagnosed as having birdpox virus. Tests showed malarial parasites in the blood of one bird. After responding to penicillin treatment at Volcanoes National Park, they were shipped to the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland.

One, named Makai, died soon after arrival. Cause of death was “vascular shock — shipment stress.” The other, Mauka, lived three years in its Maryland exile. It died October 1, 1973. An autopsy disclosed circulatory problems, an accumulation of fluid in the pericardial sac, and a greatly enlarged spleen. “Although the cause of these conditions remains unknown, … it is possible that they may have stemmed from the malarial and fowl pox infections which afflicted this bird at the time of its capture,” according to a letter from Lucille F. Stickel, director of the Service at the time.

Road to Extinction

Fossil records show that as many as three corvid species once inhabited the Hawaiian islands. The `alala – Corvus hawaiiensis, or, as it was called before 1983, Corvus tropicus— is the sole survivor. The `alala has been on Hawai`i’s protected bird list since 1931. In 1967, the `alala was added to the federal list of endangered species. Among the causes for its decline have been loss of habitat, disease, predation by rats, mongoose, and wild cats, and shooting.

At the turn of the century, the `alala’s range was continuous in a horseshoe-shaped area that extended from Pu`u Anahulu in the north, southward to Ka`u, and back again around Mauna Loa on the east to the area of Kilauea Crater. A bird survey in the 1930s found the `alala population still present throughout the horseshoe, but in greatly reduced numbers. By the 1940s, the `alala breeding population was scattered into distinct subpopulations: a small area around Hualalai; a longer strip extending the length of the Kona coast; and two or three spots on the eastern slopes of Mauna Loa.

By the end of the 1970s, there was one breeding pair on Hualalai. In Central Kona, there were thought to be about eight breeding pairs. A single breeding pair was thought to hold out in South Kona. In Ka`u, two birds were heard in 1976, but no nests were found.

Founding Stock

That same year, 1976, the state began its efforts to raise `alala in captivity. Three birds that the Fish and Wildlife Service had taken from the wild as fledglings in 1973 (Umi, Hina, and Kekau), and which had been kept in the temporary custody of the U.S. Park Service, were the founding stock.

The Fish and Wildlife Service seems to have been eager to let the state have the birds. In June 1975, the Service’s acting director wrote Michio Takata, director of the state’s Division of Fish and Game, stating that: “We wish to relocate three Hawaiian Crows currently being held in captivity by us at the Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park… [W]e would welcome your assuming responsibility for a crow propagation project.”

On March 3, 1976, Umi, Hina, and Kekau were packed in a cardboard box and hauled off to Pohakuloa, a desolate area of Mauna Kea where the nene, or Hawaiian goose, had been raised in captivity since 1949. In 1977, the three birds were joined by three more fledglings (Ulu, Eleu, and Lu`ukia) captured from the wild.

Hostile Fire

Because species of crow outside Hawai`i are among the heartiest of birds, Hawai`i’s efforts to raise `alala in captivity were pioneering. Mistakes were perhaps inevitable. One of the first concerned siting. The facility at Pohakuloa is adjacent to an Army training ground. Bomb detonations, automatic weapons firing, flares shot off in the middle of the night, and low-flying helicopters nearby rattled the `alala. They displayed symptoms of stress. Nesting activity was interrupted. Some birds started pulling out their own feathers, exposing large patches of skin. Then there was the weather. Daily temperature ranges at Pohakuloa may exceed 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Monthly ranges approach 80 degrees. The birds were not protected against the weather. Frequently they seemed chilled — a condition aggravated by the feather loss. Rats were a continuing problem. They were suspected of preying on hatchlings. Heavy use of pesticides to control rats, mice, ants and sparrows may have been a factor in the deaths of three adult `alala in 1978 and 1979. An all-out effort to rat-proof `alala cages in 1981 was futile. “After all the work done on the cages, they are as rat-infested as ever,” the resident aviculturist wrote. “The only difference is now that the rats inside can’t get out.” When the `alala program began, there was no increase in staff assigned to Pohakuloa. When a volunteer came forward to work with the birds, she ended up, by default, taking charge of the `alala program and making unilateral decisions about their care and management.

Breeding Trouble

By 1980, conditions at Pohakuloa led the `alala recovery team (established under the federal Endangered Species Act) to recommend changes. Ernest Kosaka of the Fish and Wildlife Service conveyed the team’s recommendations to Libert Landgraf, who, as administrator of the DLNR’s newly formed Division of Forestry and Wildlife, was now responsible for overall management of the state’s endangered species program. (The absorption of the Division of Fish and Game into the Division of Forestry, with Landgraf, a forester, at the helm, seems in itself to have caused many of the problems manifested in the state’s `alala recovery efforts.) In a letter October 20, 1980, Kosaka said the first order of business was to transfer two of the three captive pairs to the San Diego Zoo. Second, the team urged that “concerted efforts be made to augment the captive flock by bringing in eggs and/or nestlings. This recommendation,” Kosaka continued, “was based on field researchers’ observations that generally only one of four hatchlings survived through the fledgling stage.” Landgraf eventually seems to have consented to the transfer of all captive `alala — at least until a new facility could be built in Hawai`i. When the time came in January 1981 to move the birds, however, the zoo was unable to receive them. The transfer was pushed back to the end of the 1981 breeding season, then indefinitely stalled.

Landgraf could not be persuaded to allow eggs or nestlings to be taken from the wild. This proved to be one of several sore points between Landgraf and an experienced aviculturalist, Fay Steele, who took over management of the `alala breeding program in February 1981 after plans for the San Diego transfer fell through.

‘Almost Certain Death’

In Steele’s first report, he wrote that he found the birds “tame to the point of being pets.” He rankled at the restrictions that deprived him “of any chance of putting my own methods of operation into practice.” Another “disturbing factor is the emphatically stated policy that no fledgling `alala will be salvaged this year regardless of circumstances. Surely this policy needs reconsideration… [M]ost `alala fledglings leave the nest before they can fly very well and invariably find themselves on the ground. It may be several days before they can easily take to the trees again. Before the mongoose and the other ground predators were introduced to this island this situation presented no big problem but now these fledglings are easy prey… Not salvaging these fledglings seems tantamount to sentencing them to almost certain death and would certainly hasten the demise of the wild population…. If the entire future of Corvus tropicus is to depend on the three pair of imprinted birds in the cages at Pohakuloa then that future is indeed dismal.”

These particular issues, Steele evidently felt, resulted from an even larger problem: the fact that policy was being set by an administrator who had little appreciation for the difficult nature of captive bird propagation. “It was clear to me,” Steele wrote in a letter to a colleague, “that he had no understanding of the many things involved. If I had gotten 12 eggs, six of them had been fertile, three had hatched and I had raised one, I would have considered the year a success. He would not have. With his limited knowledge of the things involved he would probably have expected 12 babies to be raised. I was clearly in a no-win situation and had already made up my mind to leave at the end of March when the Incident with Mrs. Lee occurred.”

If Steele was a camel, Barbara Lee was the last straw. Lee was the volunteer who had been in de facto charge of the `alala since 1976. Her disputes with DLNR staff over the birds’ proper care caused the Board of Land and Natural Resources to decide in February 1981 that her access to the `alala should be restricted, although Board members had not decided under what conditions she would be allowed to visit.

On March 7, 1981, Steele found Lee “in one of the cages with the birds sitting on her shoulder and being fed from her mouth. Before I could say anything she told me that the Board had given her permission to visit the birds.” Steele was justifiably suspicious of the claim, but in any case, he didn’t wait around for explanations. He packed up and was gone the next day.

Despite the personnel problems, in 1981, biologists at Pohakuloa manipulated eggs laid by its captive flock, and with some success. Three `alala chicks were hatched that year from eggs incubated at the Honolulu Zoo.

A Low Priority

In preparation for the 1983 breeding season, staff biologist Tim Burr presented Landgraf with a list of options for the Pohakuloa program. “The state desires a credited program that is clearly recognized as being one of quality with high professional standards,” Burr wrote. “This cannot begin until an experienced aviculturist is hired on a permanent full-time basis.”

At the very least, Landgraf was asked to seek approval for the temporary hiring of Kristin Buhl for the breeding season only. Buhl, an aviculturist at the Phoenix Zoo, had worked with the `alala the previous season as an emergency hire.

By March, nothing had happened. The breeding season was already under way. Staff pleaded with Landgraf again, and on March 22, prepared a memo for him to send to Board Chairman Susumu Ono. The request was for even less than had been sought in January: “because of the current fiscal constraints,” the memo said, Buhl’s assistance was sought “only for the critical period of hatching and hand-rearing, rather than the entire breeding season.”

Landgraf evidently held the memo rather than forward it onto Ono. The file copy of the memo is the original, with the notation “Not sent to Chairman.” Nonetheless, Landgraf blamed the Ono when he notified staff that Buhl would not be hired.

In a letter April 22, 1983, to Ron Bachman, the wildlife biologist for the Hawai`i District, Buhl registered her disappointment. “I have informed the zoo that it is probably unlikely that I will be going to Pohakuloa, but have left an option open to be able to use the vacation time and short leave of absence I had arranged if the situation there should change. If there is any possibility of the state paying my round-trip air fare, I would be willing to donate my time working at the project.”

Buhl stayed in Phoenix for the 1983 breeding season.

Bumping Along

Departmental records for the 1982 through 1984 breeding seasons are spotty at best. No aviculturist was working with the `alala during that period. Staff biologists struggled along as best they could. No young were produced during these years. In 1983, one fledgling was captured in the wild and taken to Pohakuloa.

During this time, strains between the “foresters” and the “biologists” continued to be played out. Requests for travel to conventions of professionals, for specialized avicultural help, for increased support staff, and for improvements in facilities were unavailing. Hawai`i began to acquire a reputation not just as the endangered species capital of the nation, but also as a place where state officials were indifferent to the label.

In her letter to Bachman of April 22, for example, Buhl wrote: “It is unfortunate that neither you nor anyone else from Hawai`i was able to attend the International Foundation for the Conservation of Birds convention in February 1983… [T]he informal discussions with the leading conservationists, zoo curators and avicultural professionals of the United States and the world were invaluable. I’m sorry to say that most of these professionals were, to be blunt, disheartened but not surprised that no one was there officially representing the state with the highest number of endangered avian species.”

A Change for the Better

In June 1984, the DLNR finally contracted with a professional aviculturist, Fern Duvall, to oversee the captive `alala propagation program, which at this point involved eight birds.

At the same time, the limits of Pohakuloa were widely acknowledged. The Fish and Wildlife Service revived the proposal to transfer the captive `alala to its Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. The state, however, began in earnest to plan the move of the entire captive bird breeding program (nene and waterfowl included) to the site of a former prison at Olinda, Maui.

But the move to Olinda would be at least one breeding season away. Duvall proposed, and won approval for, interim improvements at the Pohakuloa facility for the 1985 season. Included were alterations in the pens to make observation of the birds less intrusive and to allow the birds to flock, as they naturally do, during the winter, before the breeding season begins. Duvall also wanted to convert a cargo shipping container into a draft-free incubation unit and to build pens to house the hoped-for fledglings.

In plans for the changes, 200 man-days of labor had been anticipated. Duvall had wanted work to begin in September 1984, allowing plenty of time for slippage as well as an opportunity for him to do a dry run on the incubator before having to place `alala eggs in it. All work had to be completed by March 15, 1985, when the `alala breeding season was expected to begin. Disturbances to the `alala after that time would not be allowed.

It was January 28 before two DLNR hands were sent to Pohakuloa. They left February 8, without completing the work. Duvall’s complaint that this was in no way sufficient prompted a visit by Landgraf and Marmelstein on February 23. By then, Duvall was developing a triage plan for work that could be completed in the few days remaining before the onset of the breeding season.

At that meeting, Duvall wrote in a memo to Bachman February 26, 1985, the status of work on the incubation unit was discussed as well. While original plans called for a shipping container to be used, the Department had instead picked up from federal government surplus a refrigerated trailer of the type used to ship perishable goods. (At the time the state acquired it, in fact, the trailer was full of beef.)

Duvall “told Mr. Marmelstein and Mr. Landgraf that the unit was at present still in Hilo DOFAW baseyard and that there were holdups in its being worked on,” he reported in his memo to Bachman. “The problems experienced were due to the fact that [purchase orders] for both materials, instrumentation, and for the electrical wiring of the incubation unit were not yet approved or signed and sent out from Honolulu. Mr. Landgraf stated in answer to this that these P.O.’s had indeed been signed on the previous day (Friday, February 22, 1985). It is indeed curious to then learn late this afternoon on February 26, 1985 that the P.O.’s still were not signed or approved.”

Despite the late hour and improvisation, the trailer was cleaned out and rigged up in time for the uneventful 1985 breeding season. It worked well, insulating eggs from the heat of the day and protecting them from the low temperatures at night. When the move was made to Olinda, the refrigerated trailer came along, too, and is still in use there.

The Long March to Olinda

Similar delays came into play in the preparation of the Olinda prison site to receive the captive bird propagation program. Again, there was a race against the `alala’s clock: its annual breeding season, which normally began in April or May in the wild, was commencing earlier each year in captivity. Duvall wanted to have the `alala at Olinda by December 31, 1985, giving the birds a short time to adjust to the new quarters before the courtship and breeding period began.

In April 1985 the Legislature had appropriated money for the project. After gentle prodding from the Fish and Wildlife Service, Board Chairman Ono approved implementation of the project in August. The Army, which was almost as eager as the DLNR was to get the birds out of Pohakuloa, had agreed to provide labor for the project. The DLNR’s Division of Water and Land Development was asked to provide engineering services and act as general contractor for the project, preparing specifications, supervising work, publishing the advertisement for bids, and so on.

Ron Walker, the state’s chief wildlife biologist, was given overall charge of the project. He seems to have worked frantically to get the ball rolling in time to move the birds before the 1986 breeding season.

But the prospects were bleak. On September 30, 1985, Walker, who then was also acting DOFAW administrator, submitted “Status Report 3” on the Olinda facility to Board Chairman Ono. He described the tight time frame and noted as well budgetary constraints. (Only $107,000 was available for the present fiscal year. Walker estimated that $100,000 more would be needed.)

He offered two options for Ono’s consideration. First was to “go ‘all out’ and notify all involved agencies of ’emergency’ nature of project and request waiver or expediting of necessary clearances…” Second was “cancel plans to build facilities, move `alala by December 31, 1985. Notify U.S. Army that the project will be retained at Pohakuloa for one more breeding season and that the training schedule and operations will have to be adjusted or cancelled during the 1986 `alala breeding season (February-July).” Walker asked Ono for “your guidance in this matter.”

No record of a formal decision to delay resettlement of the `alala can be found. Yet slippages in the timetable made a year’s delay unavoidable. Ceremonies to dedicate the facility were held July 17 — coinciding roughly with the end of another breeding season for the `alala at Pohakuloa. The birds themselves were transferred November 20, 1986.

Is It Too Late?

Finally, more than ten years after the state began its `alala propagation effort, the facilities were up to snuff. A professional aviculturist, Duvall, was supervising their care. His wife, Renate Gassmann-Duvall, a veterinarian specializing in birds, was under contract with the state to provide veterinary services.

All the same, the gene pool among the nine `alala transferred to the facility was dwindling. Three of the younger birds were offspring of captive `alala. Inbreeding began to be a problem.

The genetic stock could have been expanded (still could be) with the capture of additional birds from the wild. However, the owners of McCandless Ranch, the property on which `alala still were thought to live, refused to allow access to anyone they suspected might want to capture `alala. Neither the state nor the federal government has pressed the issue. Consequently, no birds from the wild have been added to the captive flock since 1983.

Volume 1, Number 10 April 1991

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *