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| Establishment of additional breeding populations
of the critically-endangered Puaiohi in Kauai's Alakai Wilderness Area
Pacific Island Ecosystems Research Center Biological Resources Division, USGS Principle Investigator: B. L. Woodworth Research Project Coordinator and Field Project Leader: E. J. Tweed Field Ornithologists: J. T. Foster |
The Puaiohi (Myadestes palmeri) has been greatly reduced in numbers and range over the last century. Today no more 300 Puaiohi exist, most of them confined to a 10 kmē area in the heart of the wilderness preserve. Dispersal distances of wild Puaiohi are typically small (BRD unpubl. data), and so natural dispersal and expansion of the Puaiohi population into recovering habitat will be slow. As long as the population remains small and is restricted to such a limited area, it will remain at serious risk from stochastic demographic and environmental factors.
The current recovery strategy for the Puaiohi is to increase population size and expand the species distribution by establishing a captive breeding flock at The Peregrine Fund's captive breeding facility, and reintroducing juvenile Puaiohi to former habitat using methods developed and tested with Omao. In January and February of 1999, the first captive-bred birds were reintroduced into the Kawaikoi drainage in the Alakai swamp. Fourteen birds (8 females and 6 males) were released, and all 14 have been confirmed to have survived at least 30 days post-release. A BRD field crew is using radiotelemetry to study the birds' survival, disease, movements, dispersal, foraging ecology, breeding behavior and nesting success (picture of bird below). These data will allow us to determine the causes for the success or failure of the release effort, and help us to evaluate the applicability of these techniques to other endangered Hawaiian forest birds.
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| Publications completed: 1. Kuehler, C., A. Lieberman, P. Oesterle, T. Powers, M. Kuhn, J. Kuhn, J. T. Nelson, T. Snetsinger, C. Herrman, P. Harrity, E. Tweed, S. Fancy, B. Woodworth and T. Telfer. In review. Restoration techniques for Hawaiian thrushes: Artificial incubation, hand-rearing, captive-breeding, and reintroduction to the wild. Bird Conservation International |
| Publications in progress: 1. Tweed, E. J., J. T. Foster, P. Oesterle, T. Powers, A. Lieberman, and B. L. Woodworth. Dispersal and movements of reintroduced, captive-bred Puaiohi in the Alakai Swamp, Kauai. 2. Woodworth, B. L., S. G. Fancy, A. Lieberman, C. Kuehler, T. J. Snetsinger, E. Tweed, T. Telfer (order of authors to be decided). Case Studies in Recovery of Forest Birds: Puaiohi, Myadestes palmeri. Chapter 23 in Conservation biology of Hawaiian forest birds (T. K. Pratt, B. L. Woodworth, J. Jacobi, and C. Atkinson, eds.). 3. Tweed, E. J., et al. An observation of polygyny in a reintroduced population of Puaiohi, Myadestes palermeri: evidence for mate limitation? 4. Tweed, E. J., et al. Breeding behavior and success of a reintroduced population of the critically-endangered Puaiohi. |
| Technical reports: 1. Tweed, E. J., J. T. Foster, and B. L. Woodworth. 1999. Initiating the recovery of the critically-endangered solitaire, the Puiaohi. Annual report to cooperators, July 1998 to June 1999. |
| Presentations: 1. Tweed, E. J., J. T. Foster, and B. L. Woodworth. Behavior of a reintroduced population of the critically-endangered Puaiohi, Myadestes palmeri. 1999 Hawaiian Conservation Conference, Honolulu, HI. 2. Tweed, E. J., J. T. Foster, and B. L. Woodworth. Behavior of a reintroduced population of the critically-endangered Puaiohi, Myadestes palmeri. 1999 American Ornithologists' Union annual meeting, Ithaca, NY. |
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