Part 10 (2/2)

In 1984, Carl took a chick from the captive breeding center and put it in the nest of one of the wild kestrels, Suzie. She reared it successfully, and it became the first captive-born individual to return to freedom. Subsequently captive-bred and raised birds were released into areas where there was suitable habitat but no kestrels.

In 1985, Carl was able to announce the fiftieth successful hatching at the breeding center from captive-laid and wild-harvested eggs. And by 1991, as a result of double-clutching in the wild and captive populations, artificial insemination, and successful raising of incubator-hatched chicks, two hundred Mauritius kestrels had been successfully bred. By the end of the 19931994 breeding season, 333 birds had been released to the wild.

Meanwhile Carl and the DWCT, working with the Mauritius government, were continuing their work with the wild population. Supplementary food was provided, and the birds were offered-and used-nest boxes. Strict predator control served to reduce numbers of introduced predators, and work on habitat restoration was begun. This meant that captive-bred and reared birds released into the wild had a good chance of survival. Indeed, in the early 1990s the kestrel population was judged to be self-sustaining, and, said Carl, ”the captive breeding program was closed down, the job was complete, and the kestrel was saved.” Indeed, recent studies have shown that there are probably more than a hundred breeding pairs and a total of about five to six hundred birds. Kestrel lovers-raise your gla.s.ses to the success of this effort!

The Pink Pigeon (Columba (Columba [formerly [formerly Nesoenas Nesoenas] mayeri) mayeri) Most people think of pigeons as pests. We all know the overfed birds that strut unconcerned along the pavements of busy cities, congregate around people eating in the park, and deface the walls of buildings on which they roost. Forget all that. The pink pigeon is a beautiful, medium-size pigeon with a delicate pink breast, pale head, and foxy red tail.

”This stunning bird,” said Carl, ”had been rare for probably two centuries or more and for a while was thought extinct.” Then in the 1970s, a tiny population of about twenty-five to thirty birds was found surviving in a small grove of trees high on a mountainside that had one of the highest rates of rainfall in Mauritius-about fifteen feet per year. They lived there, Carl told me, not because they liked it but because the number of predators was low in this wet and often cold habitat. But even there their numbers were declining due to habitat destruction and degradation, and because of introduced monkeys and rats that raided the nests and ate the eggs and young. Feral cats killed adult birds as well.

By 1990, there were only ten or eleven known individual pink pigeons left in the wild, and it appeared that the tiny population was in terminal decline. Fortunately in the mid-1970s, a team from the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust had captured a group of pigeons for a captive breeding program run by Carl. He had studied this group for his PhD degree.

”They were a real challenge to breed,” he told me. ”They were very fussy about their mates, and to find compatible pairs was a real headache.” With small populations, of course, it is important to manage the genetic diversity and to prevent the mating of closely related individuals. But, said Carl, ”It was common for the birds to reject the partners that you felt were most appropriate and then try and pair up with their first cousin or even a sibling! Sometimes I felt like a pink pigeon marriage guidance counselor ... a compatible breeding pair might breed and then one day there would be a huge bust-up and one would be beating up the other and they would have to be separated.”

Despite the problems, the pigeons started breeding. But then they proved to be such poor parents that the eggs and young had to be reared under domestic doves. In time, however, by allowing them to practice rearing young doves, Carl was able to improve their parental skills. And so, finally, with the pink pigeons breeding and raising their young at Black River, Carl and his team developed a program for releasing them back into their native forest.

Under Carl's supervision, a young Englishwoman, Kirsty Swinnerton, pitched a tent in the forest and monitored their progress for five years. It soon became obvious that they faced a variety of problems. First, especially at certain times of the year, there was very little appropriate food in the forest, much being eaten by introduced monkeys, rats, and birds. This meant that supplementary food needed to be provided. Second, when the reintroduced pigeons started to breed, several of them were killed by feral cats, necessitating increased predator control. But when these problems had been addressed, the original released population gradually began to increase so that eventually it was possible to establish several other populations. And in 2008, Carl told me, there were nearly four hundred free-living pink pigeons divided among six different populations. ”This species is now secure,” he said.

The Echo Parakeet (Psittacula eques echo) (Psittacula eques echo) Having attained considerable success with the Mauritius kestrel and pink pigeon, Carl turned his attention to what was then the world's rarest parrot-the beautiful emerald-green echo parakeet. It is the last of the three or four species of parrots that once lived on Mauritius, and the last of perhaps as many as seven parakeet species once found on the islands of the western Indian Ocean.

In the 1700s and early 1800s, the echo parakeet was very common in Mauritius and Reunion Island in upper- and mid-alt.i.tude forests and in the scrublands-the so-called dwarf forest-feeding on fruit and flowers in the upper branches and nesting in holes in the trees. The Reunion population disappeared first, and between the 1870s and the 1900s the population in Mauritius gradually fell. This was due primarily to habitat loss and compet.i.tion from introduced species. Fortunately in 1974, and as a result of growing awareness, the remaining forest was given almost total protection, and a significant nature reserve was created by linking smaller protected forests. But for a while, it seemed that this move had come too late-the tiny population of echo parakeets was having limited nesting success.

In 1979, when Carl was spending a lot of time in and around the Black River Gorges with his kestrels, he occasionally saw small flocks of the parakeets on the ridges surrounding the gorges. They were, he said, tame and confiding, and because they sometimes fed only a few feet away from him, he got to know them individually. But they were disappearing fast: By the 1980s, there were only eight to twelve known individuals left, of which only three were females-although Carl says it is possible that several birds had been overlooked.

Since these parakeets were island residents, facing similar problems to the birds of New Zealand, Don Merton was invited to help the effort to save them from extinction. Drawing on his considerable experience and working closely with Carl, he devised and helped implement the recovery strategy. First, they initiated a study to get to the bottom of the parakeets' nesting problems. They found that when the parakeets did breed, the chicks were attacked by nest flies that would in some years kill most if not all of them. This meant that nests had to be treated with insecticides. Another problem was tropicbirds taking over nest sites, so tropicbird-proof entrances had to be installed on suitable nest cavities. Rats also posed a great threat, sometimes eating both eggs and young. After two precious nests were lost to rats, the team stapled rings of smooth PVC plastic around the trunks of each nest tree and placed a bucket of poison nearby. One nest was attacked by a monkey, who grabbed a chick and wounded the mother. The team isolated nest trees by judicious pruning of the canopy so that monkeys could no longer jump in from neighboring trees. Then there were the seasonal food shortages-and so feeding hoppers were introduced (though it was many years before the birds learned to use them). Finally, nest cavities were made more secure and weatherproof.

The biologists found that though females typically laid three or four eggs, usually only one chick fledged. In other words, chicks were dying in almost all nests. Carl and his team decided that if there were more than two chicks in a nest, they would take the ”surplus,” leaving the parents with a brood they could raise comfortably. If a pair failed to hatch any eggs, a ”surplus” chick was given to them from another nest.

”In such intelligent birds as the echo parakeets,” Carl told me, ”it is important for their psychological well-being that they are allowed to rear young. It is also important for the young to be reared in family groups.” This program of manipulation of nests also resulted in many surplus young being taken to the breeding center, where they were raised successfully.

The first three captive-bred birds were returned to the wild in 1997; others soon followed. But there were problems with these hand-reared birds. ”Some were just too tame,” Carl told me. ”When they saw you in the forest, they would fly down and land on your shoulder.” And they were very naive. Sometimes they landed near a cat or mongoose-and did not live to tell the tale. Carl spent a lot of time with these young birds, pondering their problem. He had been releasing them when they were seventeen weeks old, so he decided to try releasing the next youngsters at about nine to ten weeks-the time when they would normally fledge. The results were dramatic. ”These younger birds integrated with the wild birds and learned their survival and social skills.”

Gabriella was one of the first three birds to be released. She mated with a wild male, Zip, and was the first captive-bred female to fledge a chick-Pippin. Gabriella had learned to use a feeding hopper in captivity and Zip, learning from her, became the first wild bird to use one.

In subsequent years, the number of birds taking supplemental food from the hoppers and using nest boxes provided by the team gradually increased, as did the number of breeding pairs. By 2006, it was decided to stop the intensive management of the wild birds, only continuing with the supplementary feeding and provision of nest boxes. In March 2008, I learned that there are about 360 free-living echo parakeets-and the population is still growing.

A Haven for the Future And so, the echo parakeet represents another species saved-although it will be necessary, said Carl, to continue with supplemental feeding and predator control. Skeptics maintain that a species cannot be deemed secure until it can live on its own, independent of human help. ”But,” said Carl firmly, ”in an increasingly modified world, we are going to have to look after and manage the wildlife if we want to keep it.” Alas, he is right. In a world so damaged by our human footprint, it is likely that we shall have to remain eternally vigilant to protect threatened and endangered species: They need all the help we can give them. It is the least we can do.

One of the most important projects on Mauritius, along with ongoing predator control, is the restoration of areas of native forest-a program in which the government's National Parks and Conservation Service now plays a large part. As a result of the successes with the Mauritius kestrel, pink pigeon, and echo parakeet, the prime minister of Mauritius declared the Black River Gorges and surrounding areas Mauritius's first national park-a haven ”for the birds that have been saved to live.”

Short-Tailed Albatross or Steller's Albatross (Phoebastria albatrus)

The story of the short-tailed albatross is inexorably linked with one man, Hiros.h.i.+ Hasegawa, and his lifelong dedication to a single cause-saving an extraordinarily beautiful and extremely endangered bird from extinction. This bird made its last stand in a remote and almost inaccessible corner of the world-Toris.h.i.+ma, an active volcano island that rises in sheer and mostly unscalable cliffs out of the sea, some eleven hundred miles southeast of Tokyo.

I spoke with Hiros.h.i.+ during my annual visit to j.a.pan in November 2007. I was very excited to meet this extraordinary man. His eyes are bright with love for his work, and for the birds to which he has dedicated his life, and he seems filled with suppressed energy. I longed to go with him to watch the short-tailed albatross-but I must make do with the information he has so generously shared with me.

Growing up in the hilly mountainous area near Fuji, he developed a pa.s.sion for birding that eventually led to his love for the short-tailed albatross, the largest seabird in the North Pacific. Their long narrow wings, with a span of more than seven feet, enable them to glide effortlessly, low over the ocean, going ash.o.r.e only during the breeding season between November and March. They are very beautiful; the adult has a white back, golden-yellow plumage on the head, and black-and-white wings. Most distinctive is the bill, which is long and bubblegum pink, tipped with blue.

At one time the short-tailed albatross was common, ranging for miles from j.a.pan to the West Coast of the United States and the Bering Sea and nesting on gra.s.sy slopes set among the rocky cliffs of small islands, mostly off j.a.pan. It was their glorious plumage that almost led to their extinction: Between 1897 and 1932, it is estimated that feather hunters clubbed to death at least five million of them on their main breeding grounds on the rugged cliffs of Toris.h.i.+ma. By 1900, there were some three hundred feather hunters camped there during the breeding season, and the numbers of short-tailed albatrosses continued to decline. When the hunters heard that the j.a.panese government, in response to lobbying from ornithologists and conservationists, had agreed to make the island off limits, they organized a final ma.s.sacre. At the end of the slaughter, no more than fifty individuals remained. And then, in 1939, another volcanic eruption wiped out most of the last nesting sites.

A chick begs its parent for food on Toris.h.i.+ma Island. When Hiros.h.i.+ Hasegawa first set foot on this island in 1977 he found only fifteen struggling chicks among the seventy-one surviving albatrosses-and he knew then that these beautiful birds were on the verge of extinction. (Hiros.h.i.+ Hasegawa) (Hiros.h.i.+ Hasegawa) At least the few survivors now had legal protection: The j.a.panese government had listed the short-tailed albatross as a Special National Monument, as well as protecting Toris.h.i.+ma Island as a National Monument. But there were very few left to protect-in 1956, an expedition counted only twelve nests. Seventeen years later, British ornithologist Dr. Lance Tickell went to Toris.h.i.+ma Island to check on this tiny colony and to band the chicks. On his way back, he stopped to give some lectures in j.a.pan's Kyoto University. That visit made a deep impression on Hiros.h.i.+ Hasegawa, then a graduate student majoring in animal ecology. Indeed, it determined his future. If a British ornithologist could get to the remote Toris.h.i.+ma Island, in j.a.panese waters, then surely he, Hiros.h.i.+, could somehow get there himself.

He could hardly have set himself a harder task. For one thing, he had no funding. And when he eventually got a place on a fisheries research vessel going to Toris.h.i.+ma, the weather was too bad for them to land and he only glimpsed the nesting albatrosses from the s.h.i.+p.

Finally, in 1977, Hiros.h.i.+ set foot for the first time on Toris.h.i.+ma Island. He counted only seventy-one adult and immature birds. Since the short-tailed albatross probably lives to be fifty or sixty years old, some of the adult birds were almost certainly survivors of the 1932 ma.s.sacre. There were only nineteen chicks among the seventy-one birds-four of them already dead, while the other fifteen died before fledging. Hiros.h.i.+ knew, then, that these beautiful birds were very, very close to extinction. ”I understood,” he told me, ”that it was my responsibility, as a j.a.panese, to bring the species back from the brink.”

For a while, Hiros.h.i.+ was supported by a fisheries experimental station, but their boat had an annual schedule that was not geared to the breeding season of the albatrosses. He succeeded in getting funding for a few years from the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, but the government would not commit to the long-term project that Hiros.h.i.+ knew was necessary. And so, he told me, he gave up seeking funding from official sources and instead began writing a series of popular articles and children's books. This brought in sufficient funds to charter boats when he needed them for his albatross work. It was then that he learned ”never to copy others' ideas.” Instead he developed his own vision of a conservation plan.

A Rare Bird and a Rare Man The journey to the breeding grounds is tough. First comes a long boat ride over the open sea-and there can be horrific storms. Even ash.o.r.e, all the equipment must be hauled up sheer black volcanic lava, to a height the equivalent of fourteen stories, and then down a four-hundred-foot cliff before arriving at the breeding site. Hiros.h.i.+ has made this journey two or three times a year for twenty-seven years. All the more remarkable considering that, as he confided to me, he always gets seasick! During the breeding season from early November to late December, Hiros.h.i.+ counts birds and nests on the island, and observes their behavior. In late March, he returns to put identifying bands on the chicks' legs. And in June, he sometimes goes back to work on improving the nesting sites, planting gra.s.s to stabilize the soil and provide some cover. Gradually, the survival rate of the chicks increased. But in 1987, probably as a result of a fierce typhoon and very heavy rain, there was a ma.s.sive landslide on Toris.h.i.+ma Island, followed by a series of bad mudslides that destroyed some nesting sites. This probably caused increased compet.i.tion for s.p.a.ce with black-footed albatrosses.

Hiros.h.i.+ realized then that it was desperately important to establish a new nesting colony in another part of the island. He carved life-like decoys (to date he has produced about one hundred), which he placed at the site he had selected. Then, when the adult birds began returning for the breeding season, he played back courts.h.i.+p calls of short-tailed albatross (a method pioneered by Dr. Steve Kress when working with Atlantic puffins). For the first two years, there was no response. Then, for the 19951996 breeding season, one pair nested there and successfully reared a chick. No other individuals arrived the next year, nor the one after that, but Hiros.h.i.+ did not give up. He continued to put out decoys and play calls, year after year, until finally, ten years after the first pair had raised their chick, three more pairs arrived. By the 20062007 breeding season, the new colony numbered twenty-four nesting pairs; sixteen chicks were fledged.

Meanwhile the breeding success at the original site gradually improved. In the 19971998 season, 129 chicks fledged (67 percent of all those hatched); the following year, 142. And so it went, year after year, until during the 20062007 breeding season no less than 231 chicks fledged, and the population of the colony was almost 2,000. One of these is a bird banded by Tickell that Hiros.h.i.+ has been observing since the start of his study; it successfully reared a chick at the age of thirty-three years.

Threats at Sea Of course, short-tailed albatrosses-like all the albatross species-face major threats during their months at sea. Many are hooked and drowned on commercial long lines; others get tangled in abandoned fis.h.i.+ng gear or swallow plastic debris floating in the ocean. From time to time, they are coated with oil from spills. Hiros.h.i.+ and other ornithologists tried to raise public awareness. Between 1988 and 1993, a series of TV programs about the plight of the short-tailed albatross was broadcast throughout j.a.pan. In 1993, the short-tailed albatross was listed as endangered in the j.a.panese Endangered Species Act. And finally, nearly twenty years after beginning his battle to save these birds, Hiros.h.i.+ was able to secure funding from the j.a.panese government for both the ongoing habitat improvement at the original breeding site and the establishment of the new breeding site on Toris.h.i.+ma Island.

The only other place where short-tailed albatrosses are known to have a nesting colony is on an island located southwest of Toris.h.i.+ma. Hiros.h.i.+ managed to visit this colony in 2001, but because the owners.h.i.+p of these islands is disputed among j.a.pan, China, and Taiwan, it was extremely hard to get access.

A Very Patient Bird There is also a place within US jurisdiction, the Midway Atoll, where short-tailed albatrosses have attempted to breed-although without success. No more than two individuals have been seen on any one of the atoll's islands at the same time, only one egg was laid, and there is no record of a hatching! Perhaps these stray short-tailed albatrosses are attracted by the sight or sound of the two million or so black-footed and laysan albatrosses that breed on those islands.

Judy Jacobs, who heads up the US Fish and Wildlife Service recovery plan for the short-tailed albatross, told me that one of these stray birds, believed to be a male, ”has shown up on Midway's Eastern Island almost every breeding season since 1999.” In 2000, to encourage a mate to join him, a number of decoys were placed on his island, along with a sound system playing recorded calls from Toris.h.i.+ma. But despite these attractions, no other short-tailed albatross appeared, and year after year he waited in vain. Then his luck changed. ”This year, just two weeks ago,” Judy wrote in January 2008, ”he was joined for the first time by another of his kind-a juvenile.” The patient albatross and his new juvenile companion showed preening and pair-bonding behavior. ”So perhaps,” said Judy, ”the adult bird's patience of nine years will finally be rewarded!!” I am longing to find out!

A New Island Home The most important part of the recovery plan drawn up in 2005 by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, in cooperation with j.a.panese and Australian scientists, was to establish a new breeding colony in a safe place. In 2002, Toris.h.i.+ma volcano had erupted again (it is one of the most active in the area), and although on that occasion it just spewed out ash and smoke-at a time when all albatrosses were out at sea-it was a stark reminder of the danger faced by the still-precarious short-tailed albatross population. It was important to try to establish a new colony on an island that was safe from volcanic activity and one that was accessible for monitoring. After much discussion, and a reconnaissance trip by j.a.panese scientists, Mukojima Island, one of the Ogasawara Islands about two hundred miles south of Toris.h.i.+ma, was selected as a site for the new colony. Short-tailed albatrosses had been recorded breeding there as recently as the 1920s.

Before attempting to translocate precious short-tailed albatross chicks to Mukojima Island, a j.a.panese team of biologists from Yamas.h.i.+na Inst.i.tute decided to work out albatross-chick-raising techniques with the non-endangered black-footed albatross species. This exercise was not very successful, but valuable lessons were learned that led to the development of better rearing techniques. So that the following year, when ten non-endangered black-footed albatross chicks were translocated to a specially prepared site on Mukojima Island, all but one of them fledged.

This success gave all those involved the courage to translocate the first precious short-tailed albatross chicks to Mukojima Island. There was a great deal of publicity in antic.i.p.ation of this event. Fortunately, Judy Jacobs wrote me, things could scarcely have gone better. Ten chicks were transported from Toris.h.i.+ma to their new home by helicopter in February 2008. And to the huge relief of everyone, all ten fledged-just a bit earlier than their peers on Toris.h.i.+ma Island.

Today new technology is enabling scientists to find out exactly where the young short-tailed albatrosses spend their four to five years at sea after fledging. Twenty young albatrosses were fitted with tracking devices. Some of them flew straight from Toris.h.i.+ma to the Bering Sea, traveling some four thousand miles in one month. This is an extraordinary journey, undertaken with no parental guidance, since the adults leave the breeding ground several weeks before the young. Of course it was particularly important to keep track of the birds that fledged from Mukojima. Five of them were equipped with satellite transmitters, as were five from Toris.h.i.+ma. In September 2008, I got an update from Judy: All ten, she said, ”are now foraging-and doing whatever else young albatrosses do-off the Aleutian Islands in Alaska.” Five from Toris.h.i.+ma and five from Mukojima!

Adult short-tailed albatross about to land on Toris.h.i.+ma Island. Amazingly, 231 chicks fledged during the 20062007 breeding season and the population of the main colony was up to almost 2,000. (Hiros.h.i.+ Hasegawa) (Hiros.h.i.+ Hasegawa) The recovery plan for the short-tailed albatross, Judy told me, calls for translocations to Mukojima to continue for four more years, in the hope that by the fifth year some of the 2008 fledglings will return to Mukojima as breeding birds. And it is hoped that the decoys and sound system on the island may attract others of the species to also nest there. ”It's a lot of work,” Judy told me, ”but very satisfying to play a part in the restoration of this magnificent seabird.”

The ”Patron Saint” of the Short-Tailed Albatross I asked Hiros.h.i.+ how he felt now that other scientists were actively involved in short-tailed albatross protection. ”It makes me very happy,” he said, ”that conservation work that I initiated alone by myself more than thirty years ago has now developed into an international joint project to form a new colony.” He will continue to monitor the situation on Toris.h.i.+ma Island, and ensure that there are chicks to be translocated to Mukojima. He has also set up the Short-Tailed Albatross Fund to receive contributions from the public. (You will find out more about this fund in ”What You Can Do” at the end of this book.) Hiros.h.i.+ Hasegawa has devoted the past thirty-five years of his life-risking life, limb, and terrible sea sickness-to restoring this glorious seabird. Shown here, standing at the edge of Tsubame-zaki cliff, on Toris.h.i.+ma Island, where he has just finished counting the short-tailed albatrosses (the tiny white dots cl.u.s.tered on the right, near the water) in the nesting slope below. (Hiros.h.i.+ Hasegawa) (Hiros.h.i.+ Hasegawa) After working with these magnificent birds for so long, I wondered whether he had ever had a special relations.h.i.+p with any particular albatross. Not really, it seems, but there is the special pair that first nested at the new site he chose on Toris.h.i.+ma in 1995. For twelve years now, they have maintained their bond, returning every year to the identical place to raise their chick. ”And I will keep watching them,” Hiros.h.i.+ told me. His eyes lit up and for a moment he seemed far away, back in spirit in the wild places with the birds that, but for his efforts, might be no more.

THANE'S FIELD NOTES

Blue-and-Gold Macaw (Ara ararauna)

When I first went to Trinidad with my colleague Bernadette Plair, I was treated to a remarkable journey that was at times hot, buggy, sleepless, bat-infested, and Spartan-like. Journeys are often defined by what you do not not have, punctuated by unexpected gifts unavailable in your normal day-to-day. What I experienced on this trip was the opportunity to see more than a hundred species of birds in just two weeks, the most notable of which was the reestablished blue-and-gold macaw, a brightly colored and loud bird near and dear to Bernadette's heart. have, punctuated by unexpected gifts unavailable in your normal day-to-day. What I experienced on this trip was the opportunity to see more than a hundred species of birds in just two weeks, the most notable of which was the reestablished blue-and-gold macaw, a brightly colored and loud bird near and dear to Bernadette's heart.

Bernadette was born in Trinidad and grew up in the Sangre Grande area of the island. A soft-spoken woman with innate island diplomacy and keen tenacity, she has played a pivotal role in the conservation of her native wildlife. Like many ”Trinis,” Bernadette is of African, French, and East Indian descent, and recalls as a youngster in the 1950s and 1960s seeing and hearing the blue-and-gold macaws that the island was once famous for. ”When I was a little girl,” she told me, ”I would see these beautiful and brightly colored birds flying above the canopy of palm trees, and naturally I never imagined that they could ever disappear.”

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