Published September 18, 2016 -
12:05am
Imagine pre-dawn, when the sky
turns pale after a long night.
Imagine a call breaking the
silence and carrying through the trees, a “cracked caw,” as one ornithologist
put it years ago: a crow’s call.
Then another call. And another,
as the ‘alala in the forest wake up and remind their neighbors they are still
there, yes, and please don’t come near this tree, it’s mine.
You have to imagine these things
because it’s been nearly 25 years since they actually happened.
Today, the only Hawaiian crows
calling from trees live in conservation centers on the Big Island and Maui, not
the wild.
Like so many other island birds,
their numbers have been decimated from all sides: avian malaria, toxoplasmosis,
introduced predators, native predators, loss of forest habitat.
There are 131 birds — 112 adults
and 19 fledglings — left in the world, the result of a decades-long breeding
effort that begins a new chapter in November, when a first group of young
‘alala moves into an outdoor aviary at Pu‘u Maka‘ala Natural Area Reserve.
If all goes well, those birds
will be the foundation of a new wild population.
“Everyone’s extremely excited,”
said Bryce Masuda, program manager at the Keauhou Bird Conservation Center, a
140-acre campus on Kamehameha Schools land in Volcano. “It’s been a long time
coming.”
At first, people didn’t think the
‘alala needed to be saved.
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