Kauaʻi: Building Noah’s Ark

By Hob Osterlund, Safina Center Fellow

In the summer of 1979, a Laysan albatross chick launched herself from a bluff on the north shore of Kauaʻi. She looked similar to other young birds of her species, but in reality she was an icon, the offspring of a pioneer, the start of something remarkable and unforeseen. She was the first chick to fledge from Kauaʻi in recent memory. She may even have been the first of her kind to fledge from any of the inhabited Hawaiian Islands in more than a millennium. Her flight marked the beginning of a new—or perhaps resurrected—colony.

Albatross may have nested on Kauaʻi for a million years or more. Then, about fifteen hundred years ago, long-distance voyaging canoes began arriving. Later came three-masted ships. The vessels carried dangerous cargo for several species of ground-nesting birds who had no fear of predators. The feathered ones and their eggs would have been easy pickings for free-roaming pigs, dogs, cats and rats. Easy pickings for humans too. Although albatross were likely extirpated on land, encounters with them continued to be experienced by humans while they were out at sea. The birds held a revered place in Hawaiian mythology, and were named in the Kumulipo, the Hawaiian creation chant. They were called mōlī.

Kaloakulua, star of Cornell TrossCam, Season One, with chick. Photo: Hob Osterlund

For the purposes of my book Holy Mōlī: Albatross and Other Ancestors (Oregon State University Press, 2016) the chick’s mama was dubbed Makani, named after the wind. We know she grew up on Midway Atoll, some fifteen hundred miles to the northwest of Kauaʻi. When she was four or five years old, however, she did something different than her other classmates. She bypassed her family and an enormous pool of potential mates. She bypassed the site of her natal nesting grounds, home of some two hundred thousand breeding mōlī pairs. She glided more than a thousand miles southeast. She flew in the opposite direction of her primary food source. She landed on Kauaʻi where the nest count was zero, or close to it. She ultimately found a mate and together they raised that first successful fledgling. Sadly, her first chick proved to be her last. In the 1980 nesting season, when Makani was incubating her egg, she was killed by a dog.

Since then the Laysan population has grown gradually, with intermittent setbacks from predation and habitat loss. In 2015, two hundred and eighteen chicks fledged from Kauaʻi. While the breeding population represents a mere 0.0005% of the 457,451 pairs counted at Midway in 2016, there is a significance beyond the actual number; all three low-lying islands of Midway Atoll are at high risk for submersion from sea level rise In the coming decades. Storm severity is already an issue. When the tsunami generated by the earthquakes in Japan hit, 250,000 albatross chicks lost their lives. Half the class of 2011. There’s no question the birds need higher, safer ground.

Kauaʻi has three essential features to offer North Pacific albatross species (Laysan, black-footed and short-tailed.) It has elevated bluffs and a near-absence of the mongoose that predate on native birds on all other main Hawaiian Islands. It has people who care. Combined, those factors may help to make Kauaʻi a Noahʻs Ark for Pacific seabirds.

On Kauaʻi, a good number of the nesting mōlī pairs raise their chicks at Kīllauea Point National Wildlife Refuge, but more than half the population nests on private lands. Because of these properties, in 2012 I founded the Kauaʻi Albatross Network. My goal was to support connections among landowners, government agencies, Hawaiian Islands Land Trust, rehabilitation services, predator control experts, academic institutions, Hawaiian cultural practitioners and national organizations such as American Bird Conservancy and Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

In 2013, after connecting with the Cornell Bird Cam project, we were jointly able to identify an appropriate setting for live-streaming of an albtross chick from hatch to fledge. We are now in season three of the “TrossCam.” Charles Eldermire, the Bird Cams coordinator, reports the first two months of this year’s streaming has logged four hundred thousand views from one hundred and ninety countries. Thatʻs eight million minutes of viewing, or about one million more minutes viewed than at this point last year.

Mate reunion. Photo: Hob Osterlund

The Kauaʻi Albatross Network believes public exposure to albatross through this virtual window is great public relations for the birds. There is so much more that needs to be done: more safe properties, more predator control, more public outreach, more connections, more caring. In the meantime, thanks to Makani, we have an opportunity to protect mōlī on the island she chose in a radical move more than thirty-five years ago. It’s the least we can do. Noah isn’t one person anymore—if there’s to be an ark, it will be built by all of us.

Nest changeover (male and female take turns on their egg). Photo: Hob Osterlund