• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Five Of The World’s Rarest Crow Have Been Released On Maui For The First Time

December 19, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

The forests of Maui have just become home to the world’s rarest crow for the first time. Five ‘alalā, also called the Hawaiian crow, were released after having been raised in captivity under the care of San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance at Keauhou Bird Conservation Center in Volcano and Maui Bird Conservation Center in Makawao.

‘Alalā, Corvus hawaiiensis, are about the size of a football with matte black feathers and a beak to match. They’re famous loudmouths, equipped with loud and varied calls that communicate through 24 different kinds of vocalizations, demonstrating they share the advanced intelligence that’s characteristic of the corvids.

Advertisement

They’re important island residents with a omnivorous diet that helps to disperse seeds throughout the ecosystem, so their resurgence would be a win for biodiversity as well as the hard-working conservationists who made the release possible. The five birds include two females and three males. Should they go on to reproduce in their new home, we can expect clutches of around one to five greenish-blue eggs, as is the ‘alalā way.

They were once a common sight on Hawai‘i Island, but around 100 years ago they began to face increasing threats from invasive predators, disease, and habitat destruction. In 1993, the ‘alalā conservation breeding program was formally established by The Peregrine Fund to try and prevent it from going the same way as the other four native – and now extinct – Hawaiian corvid species.



 

In 2000, San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance took over the breeding project as part of its Hawai‘i Endangered Bird Conservation Program, a joint partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the State of Hawai‘i Division of Forestry and Wildlife. This release marks a big moment, one that the long-running conservation program has been working toward for some time in the hope that it may now be possible to return this intelligent and charismatic species to its forest home.

Advertisement

“The translocation of ‘alalā to Maui is a monumental step forward in conserving the species and a testament to the importance of partnership in reversing biodiversity loss,” said Dr Megan Owen, vice president of conservation science at San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, in a release. “It is the result of years of preparation involving San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, USFWS, State of Hawai‘i DLNR DOFAW, University of Hawai‘i and other NGOs, all of which have brought together a diverse range of skills and expertise to support the recovery of this species – one that is vital to the forests and people of Hawai‘i.”

two alala on a branch

Fingers crossed for some greenish-blue eggs in the near future.

Image credit: © San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance

The ‘alalā will face new challenges as they settle back into the wild, so San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance scientists have been evaluating their nest quality and how it correlates to probability of egg loss. Other areas of research have included how personality traits may impact mate selection, what determines breeding success, and ways to better manage ‘alalā after release.

It’s a tough job, but one that the team are passionate about getting done right. Not just for the sake of restoring the ecosystem, but also so that it will return a bit of Hawai‘i’s culture that has been sorely missed.

Advertisement

“It means a lot to me to care for the ‘alalā,” added Keanini Aarona, avian recovery specialist at Maui Bird Conservation Center. “To me, and in my culture, the ‘alalā are like our ancestors – our kūpuna. The forest wouldn’t be there without these birds.”

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Cricket-Manchester test likely to be postponed after India COVID-19 case
  2. EU to attend U.S. trade meeting put in doubt by French anger
  3. Soccer-West Ham win again, Leicester and Napoli falter
  4. Lacking Company, A Dolphin In The Baltic Is Talking To Himself

Source Link: Five Of The World’s Rarest Crow Have Been Released On Maui For The First Time

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Unethical Experiments: When Scientists Really Should Have Stopped What They Were Doing Immediately
  • The First Humans Were Hunted By Leopards And Weren’t The Apex Predators We Thought They Were
  • Earth’s Passage Through The Galaxy Might Be Written In Its Rocks
  • What Is An Einstein Cross – And Why Is The Latest One Such A Unique Find?
  • If We Found Life On Mars, What Would That Mean For The Fermi Paradox And The Great Filter?
  • The Longest Living Mammals Are Giants That Live Up To 200 Years In The Icy Arctic
  • Entirely New Virus Detected In Bat Urine, And It’s Only The 4th Of Its Kind Ever Isolated
  • The First Ever Full Asteroid History: From Its Doomed Discovery To Collecting Its Meteorites
  • World’s Oldest Pachycephalosaur Fossil Pushes Back These Dinosaurs’ Emergence By 15 Million Years
  • The Hole In The Ozone Layer Is Healing And On Track For Full Recovery In The 21st Century, Thanks To Science
  • First Sweet Potato Genome Reveals They’re Hybrids With A Puzzling Past And 6 Sets Of Chromosomes
  • Why Is The Top Of Canada So Sparsely Populated? Meet The “Canadian Shield”
  • Humans Are In The Middle Of “A Great Evolutionary Transition”, New Paper Claims
  • Why Do Some Toilets Have Two Flush Buttons?
  • 130-Year-Old Butter Additive Discovered In Danish Basement Contains Bacteria From The 1890s
  • Prehistoric Humans Made Necklaces From Marine Mollusk Fossils 20,000 Years Ago
  • Zond 5: In 1968 Two Soviet Steppe Tortoises Beat Humans To Orbiting Around The Moon
  • Why Cats Adapted This Defense Mechanism From Snakes
  • Mother Orca Seen Carrying Dead Calf Once Again On Washington Coast
  • A Busy Spider Season Is Brewing: Why This Fall Could See A Boom Of Arachnid Activity
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version