Once out of its carrier box, the young wedge-tailed shearwater lingered a few minutes on the shoreline near Diamond Head Lighthouse. Then, flexing its wings in the salt air and wind, it took off over the ocean.
The fledgling is one of about 70 that the Hawaii Wildlife Center has successfully rescued and released on Oahu since mid-November during the peak of the annual “fallout” season from September to December, when many of the native seabirds on their first flights get confused by night lights and end up on the ground.
The Hawaii Wildlife Center, based in Kapaau on Hawaii island, brought its rescue van to Oahu as part of the pilot, three-week Oahu Seabird Aid Program, which is here until Tuesday.
“These guys just have this one epic, inaugural flight out to the ocean,” said program manager Samantha Christie. “And if it doesn’t go well, most of the time they’re going to die.”
Once on the ground, the birds are vulnerable to predators such as mongoose, cats and dogs or being run over by a vehicle unless they get a little help from a human hand. The mission of the Hawaii Wildlife Center is to nurse the fledglings back to health so they can fly again.
The majority of them, according to Christie, are fine and just ended up down on the ground after mistaking artificial night lights for moonlight, which they use to guide them from their burrows to the sea. Some circle the lights until they collapse, exhausted, while others collide into buildings.
Some fledglings, about 100 days old, might be malnourished, but most just need a second chance to reorient themselves and get back into the air again.
Within four hours of landing on Oahu, Christie and volunteers received, examined and released their first fledgling patient. Within the first week, 25 seabirds had been picked up, evaluated and released.
The state Department of Land and Natural Resources and Hawaii Wildlife Center are asking the community to turn down unnecessary, outdoor night lights as well as keep an eye out for downed seabirds during fallout season.
Seabirds found near the side of a road or building can be placed in a ventilated carrier and dropped off for care at several locations, including Sea Life Park, Feather and Fur Animal Hospital in Kailua and the Hawaiian Humane Society.
Most of them were collected from roadways, yards and, in one case, a resident’s swimming pool in Windward Oahu.
The program set up a temporary rehabilitation site at Honolulu Zoo, where each bird is given a health exam and provided hydration and nutritional support. Christie and volunteers release the birds, when ready, mostly from Diamond Head and windward shorelines.
While here, the center is also collecting data to find out where the greatest volume of fallouts is occurring. The number of fallouts has varied on Oahu over the years, from 200 some years to almost 1,000 other years.
Linda Elliott, director of Hawaii Wildlife Center, said after fielding dozens of phone calls about downed shearwaters on Oahu every year, she decided to establish the pilot program to offer help where it was needed.
While wedge-tailed shearwaters, or Puffinus pacificus, are not endangered, they are native to Hawaii and there is a concern that their population levels are dropping, Elliott said. They are also protected under the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918.
An estimated 270,000 breeding pairs of wedge-tailed shearwaters reside in the state, according to DLNR, including 40,000 to 60,000 breeding pairs in the main Hawaiian Islands. The largest colonies are at Manana and the Mokulua islets.
Elliott said based on the success of this year’s pilot program, she hopes to return to Oahu next year.
“With these annual fallouts and limited nesting areas, it’s important to get as many of them back out into the wild successfully,” she said, “so they don’t end up on the threatened and endangered list.”
