Hawaiian crow might find a new home on Maui

The forests of Hawaii island are the historical home of the Hawaiian crow, also known as the alala.

But the multiagency project that aims to bring the critically endangered species back from the brink of extinction is exploring the possibility of conducting its next captive-bird release on a different island.

The ‘Alala Project recently announced it is looking at the islands of Maui County in the wake of last year’s setback that saw the small group of alala in the Puu Makaala Area Reserve brought back into captivity after too many of them were being picked off by Hawaiian hawks, the bird’s fiercest predator.

In the end, only five alala survived out of the 30 birds released into the wild between 2016 and 2019.

Now the project of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance has begun taking the next steps to advance its goal of reintroducing a population of the Hawaiian crow into the wild.

Maui Nui is being eyed for the next release because there are no Hawaiian hawks, or io, there, and researchers hope to study the alala in an io-free environment.

“We’re not giving up on establishing a self-sustaining population on Hawaii island,” said Jackie Gaudioso, ‘Alala Project coordinator and wildlife biologist with the state Division of Forestry and Wildlife.

She said having a wild population on Hawaii island is necessary for the species’ long-term recovery. That’s why the project is continuing to look for new release sites and conducting habitat management there with future releases in mind.

At the same time, it’s taking a closer look at the io, another endangered species, to try to better understand its behavior and habits.

In the meantime, officials said they are turning their attention to the islands of Maui County, where there is subfossil evidence that alala or a similar species once existed.

“We have forests that are similar to the forest on Hawaii island,” said Fern Duvall, Maui Nui program manager for the state’s Native Ecosystems Protection and Management Program and former head of Hawaii’s alala captive-breeding program.

Duvall, a crow expert, is also chairman of the Maui Invasive Species Committee.

“There are abundant food resources in our Maui Nui forests, abundant trees that would be suitable for nesting platforms. And we do not have the io predation risk, because we don’t have io here,” Duvall said in a news release.

The alala, revered by Hawaiian culture and known for its intelligence and tool use, was once abundant on Hawaii island, filling forests with their chatter. But the last wild pair vanished in South Kona in 2002.

In the decade prior, the alala was down to only 20 individuals, captive and wild, and nearing extinction, the victim of habitat loss and predators, including rats and mongooses.

Today, however, the world’s population of alala numbers more than 100, all of which are housed in two captive-breeding facilities on Hawaii island and Maui.

Last year’s ‘Alala Project setback was the second time the birds were brought back into captivity as a way of avoiding a total population collapse in the wild.

The first time was after the initial release in December 2016, when three birds perished in their first week of freedom, including two that were killed by hawks. Project officials delayed the next release for nine months while they retooled their strategy.

During the latest releases, officials said, the wild birds were progressing and showing signs of adapting to their new home. One bird was even sitting on a nest.

“These birds were definitely trying their best to reproduce in the wild,” Gaudioso said.

At the same time, however, the hawks were discovering that the crows were a food source, and they became proficient at attacking and chasing the black birds.

“They were hunting alala even in forest areas with a dense understory,” Gau­dioso said, adding that the understory is where the alala were supposed to find refuge from the predator.

Project officials began seeing the loss of wild alala accelerate in September. Among the victims: the nesting female.

“We knew we had to take immediate action,” she said.

The five survivors — three females and two males — were recaptured and re-added to the captive flock.

Gaudioso said the survivors are extremely important to the project because they gained valuable knowledge about foraging, predator avoidance, pair bonding and other social behaviors. Among other things, they can serve as mentors to other birds during pre-release anti-predator training.

Any release on Hawaii island is likely a couple of years away, she said.

For now the project will focus on Maui Nui, where officials hope to learn more about the the bird’s breeding behavior and its adjustment to the wild without the threat of the io.

The first steps will be to evaluate potential release sites and to engage in discussion with conservation partners and community members to assess the feasibility of and support for such an effort.

On Hawaii island, research about the Hawaiian hawk will continue at the previous release site and at additional potential release areas over the next few years. Research will focus on the hawk’s distribution, movements and behaviors, and there will be banding and tagging of individual io to track their movements.

Project officials said their work was never going to be easy. Setbacks, including heartbreaking losses, are typical of such re-population efforts.

Bryce Masuda, conservation program manager of the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance’s Hawaii Endangered Bird Conservation Program, said he’s looking forward to the next phase of the alala recovery effort.

“As we have seen with the recovery of other endangered species, successful programs must problem-­solve — incorporating new strategies and applying science to achieve thriving populations,” he said.