RARE PO’OULI BROUGHT INTO CAPTIVE BREEDING CENTER

SEPTEMBER 30, 2004

One of the last of its species, a rare Hawaiian forest bird called the po’ouli was caught by a team of biologists and transported to the Maui Bird Conservation Center in Olinda on September 10, 2004. This bird is one of three individuals that represent the last vestiges of a species that once populated Hawaiian forests. The birds are being caught and moved into a captive breeding center with the hopes that a management program will be able to save this species.

The decision to bring these last three birds into a captive breeding program was made in 2003 after repeated efforts to bring these individuals together in the wild had failed. Po’ouli are small birds that live in heavily forested areas and the attempt to capture these individuals has proved a challenge. This individual is the first one of its species to be removed from the wild.

The bird was flown by helicopter to the Maui Bird Conservation Center where it was placed in the care of experienced animal care staff. The facility, like the Keauhou Bird Conservation Center on the Big Island of Hawaii, is operated by the San Diego Zoo's department of Conservation and Research of Endangered Species.

The elusive po`ouli was not even discovered until 1973, when a group of University of Hawaii students conducting research on the east slope of Haleakala sighted a bird they had never seen before. It was named “po`ouli,” which means "black head" in Hawaiian, by Mary Kawena Puku`i, a renowned authority on Hawaiian culture. It has a quiet song “like dripping water” according to biologists, making it much more difficult to hear than more vocal species such as the Maui parrotbill.