Part 9 (2/2)

Don told me that he and most of his colleagues ”felt very strongly about what should be done, and often there was frustration at not being permitted to get on with it.” When, finally, they got the go-ahead to capture and relocate the remaining robins, they reached the island in September 1976 to find just seven birds left-and only two of them were female. And only one of the females would prove to be productive. This female, marked with a blue leg band, would become famous as Old Blue. The tiny group of survivors was moved from Little Mangere Island, where their scrub forest environment was dying and no longer able to support them, to nearby Mangere Island. This was but the first step in a dramatic and ultimately successful attempt to rescue the species.

Old Blue-The Matriarch Who Saved Her Species Black robins normally mate for life. Old Blue and her mate nested during the next breeding season, but their eggs were infertile. Amazingly, Old Blue then abandoned her longtime partner and in his place selected a younger male soon to be known as Old Yellow (because of his yellow leg band). Again Old Blue laid eggs-and now this little family became part of Don's innovative cross-fostering program.

It was that childhood memory of the canary fostering the goldfinch that gave Don an idea for how he might be able to boost the normally low productivity of the species. In normal circ.u.mstances, a black robin pair rears no more than one brood of two chicks per year, so the species lacks the ability to recover quickly from adversity. But if a nest was destroyed, or eggs taken, the black robins would build a new nest and produce another clutch. So Don destroyed the nest, removed both of Old Blue's eggs, and placed them in tomt.i.t nests, where they were successfully fostered.

Old Blue and Old Yellow then made a second nest, and she laid a second clutch. Again the eggs were taken. Meanwhile, the chicks from her first tomt.i.t-hatched clutch were returned to Old Blue so they would learn behavior appropriate to their species. Then the second clutch hatched. Don told me that when he returned them to join the first lot, Old Blue looked up at him with a resigned expression, as if to say ”Goodness, what next?” Whereupon he rea.s.sured her, ”We shall help you feed them, love, don't worry.” I have always cherished the mental picture of Don and his team rus.h.i.+ng around searching for suitable food for the artificially extended family of black robin chicks they had helped to create.

The same procedure was repeated for the next few seasons, thus giving the single family group of black robins a kick start. ”Cross-fostering proved highly effective,” Don said, ”but at the start the technique was untested and thus of high risk... . If we failed, we would be blamed for exterminating the species!”

Desperately Don and his team worked to save these birds. ”Old Blue, Old Yellow, and their many chicks became my extended family,” said Don. ”I thought about them constantly. While in the field-often for months at a stretch-we spoke about little else.” Each spring, when Don visited Mangere Island, he couldn't wait to find out which birds had survived the winter. ”Each new nest, egg laid, or chick hatched was cause for celebration, and any deaths were almost the equivalent of a loss within the family!” He never enjoyed the times when, to ensure their long-term survival, he had to take their eggs and destroy their nests.

Old Blue finally pa.s.sed away in 1984. She lived to be thirteen years old, more than twice the life span of most robins-despite the abnormal number of eggs and chicks she had been manipulated into producing. And because her story had touched the hearts of many New Zealanders, a plaque was set up in her memory at the Chatham Island airport, and the Right Honorable Peter Tapsell, minister for internal affairs, announced the death of ”Old Blue-matriarch & savior of the Black Robin species.” National and international media broadcast the story of the world's rarest and most endangered bird who had in her ”geriatric years” brought her species back from the brink.

A Bright Future By the late 1980s, numbers of black robins had increased beyond the one hundred mark. Groups of black robins were then established on an additional island. After this, there was no further need for intensive, hands-on management of the birds. Don told me there are now approximately two hundred black robins on two islands. All are descended from just one pair-Old Blue and her mate Old Yellow-thus in their genetic profiles all are as identical as identical twins.

”Thankfully,” said Don, ”there are no apparent genetic problems.” However, habitats on the two islands are at saturation point, which means that the species cannot increase in number or expand in range. Also, during and after each breeding season, there is considerable wastage-young birds die because they have nowhere to live. Don has long advocated reestablishment of a population on Little Mangere Island-the very place whence he removed the last members of the species at the start of the rescue. Since then Little Mangere's woody vegetation has recovered, and being free of predatory mammals the island presents-in the short term at least-the only available option for black robins in the Chatham Islands. Don strongly supports this proposal. ”And needless to say,” he told me, ”I would love to be involved!”

Christmas Island Park Manager Max Orchard and his wife, Beverly, have devoted the past sixteen years (and even handed over their yard and carport) to nurturing injured or orphaned Abbott's b.o.o.bies. Here Max is feeding fish to a recovering juvenile. (Corey Piper) (Corey Piper)

Abbott's b.o.o.by (Papasula abbotti)

The Abbott's b.o.o.by is an ancient species, a true oceanic bird, living at sea and coming ash.o.r.e only to breed. It nests only on Christmas Island (a territory of Australia), a fifty-million-year-old extinct volcano rising out of the Indian Ocean, ten degrees south of the equator. Abbott's b.o.o.bies are impressive-looking birds, with bright white heads and necks, long dark-tipped bills, and narrow black wings. Growing as large as thirty-one inches in length, they are the largest of the b.o.o.bies-some call them the ”jumbo jet” of the b.o.o.bies.

These b.o.o.bies have a life span of up to forty years, and the young birds do not start to breed until they are about eight years old. They have one of the longest breeding cycles of any bird (fifteen months), so breeding occurs at two-year intervals. They nest in the tops of trees, laying just one egg.

Their numbers began to decline when, in the 1960s, phosphate mining began in full force on Christmas Island. In order to mine the mineral, it was necessary to clear large strips of the primary forest-interfering with the b.o.o.bies' breeding, since they nest in the tops of forest trees. These tall trees often grew over the richest phosphate deposits, so that Abbott's b.o.o.bies were in direct conflict with mining interests. The b.o.o.bies have thus lost the greater part of their historic breeding habitat. Their population is now estimated at about twenty-five hundred breeding pairs.

Although the local government as well as the mining company tried to monitor and protect the habitat and nests, the Abbott's b.o.o.by continued to decline. Finally in 1977, Don Merton, well established as an island restoration expert by then, was sent to Christmas Island to advise the Australian government and the British Phosphate Commission on wildlife conservation matters. He spent two years with his young family on Christmas Island and ultimately helped convince the government to create the island's first biological reserve, a four-thousand-acre national park built in 1980-one of the largest and least modified raised tropical island rain forest ecosystems to be protected anywhere. Another conservation initiative on Christmas Island was the plan for a comprehensive program monitoring the breeding and conservation of Abbott's b.o.o.by.

Destroyed Habitat and Chicks in Peril By the mid-1980s, it was estimated that some 33 percent of the habitat formerly used by the b.o.o.bies had already been destroyed, and mining activities had created at least seventy clearings in the forests. Not only had this deprived the b.o.o.bies of nest sites, but it was found that birds nesting near the clearings suffered from wind turbulence. Sadly, this caused unfledged Abbott's b.o.o.by chicks to be blown from their nesting sites. Strong winds can sometimes blow fledgling and even adult b.o.o.bies from branches, and if a bird falls to the forest floor it will die unless it manages to climb up through the vegetation. These birds can take off from the ground, but with great difficulty. They need sufficient wind from the right direction and a clear ”runway” to get airborne. Unless found and rescued, they are normally doomed.

Ultimately, it was decided that the best way to protect the b.o.o.bies was to protect and expand the island forests, by returning precious topsoil and replanting areas cleared for mining. Hopefully this would reduce the wind turbulence that is so detrimental to nesting b.o.o.bies. Thousands of seedlings were raised and planted, using funds from the mining companies negotiated as part of their agreements.

The Restoration Program Comes Under Attack Shockingly, three years later, the area given top priority by wildlife biologists was selected by the government for an immigration reception and processing center. Not only that, but the section of the mine site that had already been reforested was cut down. This has sparked a great deal of anger in the conservation community, particularly among those who have worked so hard on this restoration program.

The National Parks Australia Council has denounced the plan as ”illegal” and requested that work on the site should cease immediately since it did not have proper approvals. ”There are more suitable sites on the island that do not have such severe environmental impacts, and already have infrastructure provided,” said Andrew c.o.x, president of the council.

And Monash University biologist Peter Green, one of those originally involved in the Abbott's b.o.o.by monitoring program and with a long a.s.sociation with the island, commented that ”the Abbott's b.o.o.by birds were the focus of a commonwealth-funded rehabilitation program, which had been taking place at the site of the new detention center. And now,” he concluded, ”they have just put a bulldozer through it.”

Not only this, but the government is actually negotiating new deals with the mining company. In 1988, the federal government had ruled that there would be no further clearing of rain forest on Christmas Island; the company is now appealing that ruling, and has recently sought permission to expand its lease to include new areas of old-growth forest. ”It's crazy,” said Andrew c.o.x. ”Christmas Island is a jewel in the environmental crown of Australia [with] the world's only population of Abbott's b.o.o.by birds and other endemic creatures ... and we should protect it.” It's one of very few raised tropical island ecosystems remaining anywhere.

For now, the Abbott's b.o.o.by numbers seem secure. But this latest environmental blow could prove harmful.

The Orchard Nursing Home and Orphanage Meanwhile, for the past sixteen years, amid all this Christmas Island turbulence, Max and Beverly Orchard have been rescuing the island's injured and orphaned endangered birds. Max has been a wildlife ranger for more than thirty years, working initially in Tasmania. He and Beverly have spent most of their adult lives rescuing and caring for orphaned or injured animals, with a special interest in endangered species. When they were in Tasmania, they used to care for wombats, wallabies, and Tasmanian devils.

I have talked with them on the phone, and the warmth and pa.s.sion of their caring personalities reaches me all the way from Christmas Island. Beverly explained that every time a big storm hits the island during nesting season, many of the young ones fall out of their nests. It's during the monsoon season that there are so many casualties-that's March through August. But the injured and orphaned keep coming until Christmas. Visitors to the park and local hikers find the birds and are always guided to Max and Beverly. Nestlings grow exceedingly slowly, remaining in their nests for about a year, so they are vulnerable for a very long period.

Beverly Orchard is the ”heart and soul” of the operation, according to her husband, Max. ”She can get along with the fiercest of them.” (Max Orchard) (Max Orchard) When they arrive, ”they are often dehydrated, starving and completely depleted-but they can be resilient,” said Beverly. The Orchards take the little ones and those that are injured into their home and put them into small nesting boxes. Then Beverly nurses them, giving them water and small fish from the huge stock that they keep in the freezer. She soaks the fish extra-long in water so they're easier for the young ones to swallow. If birds are injured, Max will try to heal them-say, trying to repair a broken leg. One time he managed to surgically remove a fishhook from an Abbott's b.o.o.by gut.

Of course, inevitably, a number of her patients die. But Beverly is amazed by the b.o.o.bies' resiliency. ”We've had a number of them come in that I didn't think had any chance of making it,” she said. ”Some couldn't even lift up their heads.” When she left them for the night, she'd felt ”sure they were breathing their last breaths.” But after her nursing and a night's rest, she'd check on them in the morning ”and they'd be peering out at me, talking excitedly-hungry for breakfast.”

Nesting in Plastic Chairs Each patient has its own nest-an ”old plastic office chair” kept outside under Max and Beverly's carport. They realized that this was the most comfortable spot, especially as feeding time can be very messy. At any given time, there are dozens of plastic chair nests lined up out there. After an injured or orphaned b.o.o.by has been nursed back to health or come to a certain stage of maturity in its box inside the house, Beverly and Max try to transition it to a plastic chair as soon as possible.

Some of Max and Beverly's family of juvenile b.o.o.bies waiting for breakfast.(Bev Orchard) Young patient recuperating on its office chair nest in the Orchards' carport.(Dr. Janos Hennicke) In the wild, b.o.o.bies nest in extremely high trees. ”We try to replicate what happens in the wild,” said Max, ”but there's no way we can replicate the nest. We figured out that the best plan was to give them each a plastic chair, and we feed them fish and squid-the same kind of food we believe their parents would feed them in the wild.” They fly out of their chair nest every day for a few hours, always coming back for feeding times.

”They are usually quite friendly and cooperative birds,” said Max, ”but woe be it to any b.o.o.by who sits on the wrong chair nest!”

There Are b.o.o.bies and b.o.o.bies ”They all get the same name-Eric,” said Max. This is based on the Monty Python skit ”Fish License,” in which John Cleese plays a man who names all his pets Eric. But the b.o.o.bies definitely differ from one another.

”Each one has its own personality,” said Beverly. ”Some of them like to be held and are quite smoochy. They are very conversational birds and like to talk with their parents, so when it's feeding time, I always go out and talk to them. 'How are you?' 'How was your day?'-that kind of thing. They all start squawking back-they all get very excited to talk with me.” They have a croaking-bellow sound that Max jokingly noted sounds like someone getting sick-”kind of a retching sound.”

”We try not to handle them too much,” said Beverly. ”Once the babies get their feathers, we put them out on a chair and don't handle them any longer. This way when they leave us, they won't be tempted to land on boats and visit with other humans.”

Max calls Beverly the ”heart and soul” of the operation. ”She can get along with the fiercest of them-the ones who come in screeching and strutting menacingly,” said Max. ”Before long, she has them all calmed down and practically cooing when they see her.”

Over the years, this amazing couple have rescued close to five hundred Abbott's b.o.o.bies in all. They mature slowly-it's about a year until maturity-and those the Orchards deal with are usually in recovery, so their development is even slower. Some stay nested on their plastic chairs with Max and Beverly for up to two years. And then, finally, they are ready for life in the wild.

”The day comes when they are finally mature and they take off, and that's the last you'll see them,” said Beverly. Fortunately, though, before they are ready to go the b.o.o.bies have a good-bye ritual so Max and Beverly can prepare for the departure: ”One day they will come back to the chair, but not eat,” said Beverly. ”And they will suddenly be especially talkative-as if they have a lot to say. This is when we know they have found a food source-they are finally self-reliant. Perhaps they are telling us about what they've found or thanking us or just saying good-bye. We have no way of knowing” she added. ”Then they'll sleep peacefully through the night on the nest, say a final good-bye in the morning, and take off for good.”

”They become part of our family,” said Max. ”They're completely dependent on you and then they go off forever. It's a mixed feeling. You're happy that another one is returned to the wild-this is why we do all this work. So of course you hope it all goes well for them, but it's hard never seeing them again after they've been a part of your family for so long.”

Max told me that apart from their habitat problems, the latest threat to the b.o.o.bies is the high number of nearby fis.h.i.+ng operations that are depleting their food resources as well as posing a direct threat through nets and long-line fishhooks. The Abbott's b.o.o.by may be saved from extinction for now, said Max, ”but we need to remain vigilant.”

This adult cahow climbed on biologist Jeremy Madeiros's head before taking off. Jeremy's head was the best perch this cahow could find in the treeless habitat of Castle Harbor, Bermuda. (Andrew Dobson) (Andrew Dobson)

Bermuda Petrel or Cahow (Pterodroma cahow)

I have been fascinated by petrels ever since I read have been fascinated by petrels ever since I read Tom the Water Baby Tom the Water Baby as a child. In that old cla.s.sic, it was the Stormy Petrel, called ”Mother Carey's Chicken,” who came into the story. Mother Carey is the name petrels have long been called by sailors, who meet them far from sh.o.r.e, at home in the wilderness of the oceans. The name is thought to be derived from as a child. In that old cla.s.sic, it was the Stormy Petrel, called ”Mother Carey's Chicken,” who came into the story. Mother Carey is the name petrels have long been called by sailors, who meet them far from sh.o.r.e, at home in the wilderness of the oceans. The name is thought to be derived from Mater Cara, Mater Cara, which is how the early Spanish and Portuguese sailors, the first Westerners to sail the southern seas, referred to the Virgin Mary. And which is how the early Spanish and Portuguese sailors, the first Westerners to sail the southern seas, referred to the Virgin Mary. And petrel petrel is thought to refer to Saint Peter, because when they feed, the birds seem to be walking on water. is thought to refer to Saint Peter, because when they feed, the birds seem to be walking on water.

The subtropical petrel whose story I share here, the Bermuda petrel, is one of the so-called gadfly petrels belonging to the genus Pterodroma Pterodroma-from the Greek pteron, pteron, meaning ”wing,” and meaning ”wing,” and dromos, dromos, meaning ”running”: hence ”the winged runner.” This recognizes the fast, acrobatic, and gliding flight. Indeed, all petrels are masters of the air, able to survive fierce storms and fly through howling winds with the wild spray of giant waves cras.h.i.+ng below them. It is when they come on land to breed that they suffer so terribly from the damage that we have inflicted on their island environments. meaning ”running”: hence ”the winged runner.” This recognizes the fast, acrobatic, and gliding flight. Indeed, all petrels are masters of the air, able to survive fierce storms and fly through howling winds with the wild spray of giant waves cras.h.i.+ng below them. It is when they come on land to breed that they suffer so terribly from the damage that we have inflicted on their island environments.

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