honoluluadvertiser.com

Sponsored by:

Comment, blog & share photos

Log in | Become a member
The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Saturday, January 5, 2002

Bird matchmaking added to biologists' duties

By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Science Writer

Biologists will head into the forests of Haleakala Monday on a mission of love.

They will try to unite the last remaining male po'ouli — a native forest bird — with one of the two remaining females.

Their hope, which they admit may be a long shot, is that the meeting will lead to a love nest and a chance to improve the now-dismal odds for the survival of the species.

The brown honeycreeper, with a bandit's black mask for which it is named, is far less brightly colored than most Hawaiian forest birds. Its rarity, and the fact that it seldom sings, kept it undiscovered until 1973, when it was spotted in the East Maui rain forest.

By the mid-'90s there were only about six po'ouli left, including perhaps two pairs. Today, teams working in the rain forest can identify only two females and one male, and they inhabit separate parts of the forest about a mile apart.

Since their habitat ranges do not overlap, it is not clear that the birds are aware of one another. The Maui Forest Bird Recovery Project plans to change that.

A team, led by recovery project coordinator Jim Groombridge, will head into the Hanawi Natural Area Reserve on Monday to capture and put a radio transmitter on the male before releasing him. Then they will try to capture one of the females, fit it with a transmitter and bring it into the male's territory.

"We go into this translocation project with the full knowledge that it may not succeed ... Unfortunately, we have no guarantees that the birds will cooperate with our game plan," said Paul Henson, field supervisor of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Pacific Islands office.

They plan to release the female so near the male that they can't help but meet, but it is possible the female will immediately fly away, or that one won't like the other, Groombridge said.

The team could, if the first attempt fails, try to bring the other female to the male's territory.

The Maui Forest Bird Recovery Project is scheduling six weeks to do the matchmaking.

The heroic efforts are unusual, but experts see no alternatives.