Time fast running out on Hawaiian po'ouli

By Robert S. Boyd
Knight Ridder News Service

WASHINGTON — It's a melancholy love story: one guy, two gals, all three living apart, childless, getting on in years. Every well-meaning attempt to bring them together has failed. And now, yet another try.

Actually, it's a true story — and a sad one — about the last members of a rare Hawaiian species of bird known as po'ouli. Once numbering in the hundreds, the three known survivors are clinging to life in a rain-soaked mountain forest on Maui.

On Tuesday, agents of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Hawai'i Division of Forestry and Wildlife will set out in a helicopter — carrying nets, video cameras, food and medical supplies — on a 10-day mission to preserve this dying species.

They'll take along an "avian intensive care unit," with heat, lights, oxygen, drugs, anesthetics and surgical capabilities in case one of the birds is hurt or falls ill during the expedition. If necessary, a helicopter would evacuate an injured bird.

The government matchmakers hope to capture the male and both females, take them back to a bird conservation center on the island, put them together and see if they will mate.

In another effort, in 2002, one of the females was taken to spend a night in the male's home range in the forest, but she flew back to her own nest, a mile and a half away, the next day. There was no evidence of any closer relationship.

"We don't know if they encountered each other. If they had, they might have stayed together," said Eric VanderWerf, a bird expert with the Fish and Wildlife Service.

No chick has been born to a po'ouli for years, and the remaining three adults are at least 7 years old and nearing the end of their reproductive age. "We're running out of time," VanderWerf said.

Already this year, rescue teams have made three unsuccessful trips to Hanawi mountain, where the reclusive birds live, each in a separate habitat a half-mile or more apart. They don't seem to have any yearning to get together on their own.

"It is very unlikely any breeding will occur without direct intervention," VanderWerf wrote in a report on the recovery plan.

One good sign: The females don't seem to have lost their maternal instincts. Both were spotted feeding chicks of another species, VanderWerf said.

About 5 to 6 inches long, the po'ouli (which translates as black face), were discovered by campers in 1973. Even Native Hawaiians were not aware of them. Their present home is a mile-high, 7,500-acre nature preserve where they're protected from predatory rats and wild pigs.

"It's very remote, rugged and wet. It gets more than 300 inches of rain a year," VanderWerf said. "You have to get in by helicopter."

To capture a po'ouli, researchers try to lure one out of its hiding place by playing tape-recorded songs from a related species, the Maui parrotbill. If the scheme works, the bird flies into a "mist net," a fine mesh draped over a pole or a bush, and is trapped in a soft cloth bag.

Besides bad weather and wary birds, the po'ouli project is hampered by budget cuts of nearly

20 percent over the past two years at the Fish and Wildlife Service, Vanderwerf said.

"We don't have enough money to keep this project going after June," he said. "It's very, very frustrating."

Vanderwerf argued that it's important to save dwindling species because "each one is a unique piece of Earth's natural heritage. If it's lost, it's like losing the Mona Lisa. It's irreplaceable."