Hawaiian Bird Species in Captivity

fkalltheway

fkalltheway

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
I was wondering if anyone knows of any endemic Hawaiian bird species that are exhibited by zoos. I know that San Diego has the two Hawaiian Bird conservation centers on Hawaii and Maui, but neither of those facilities is open to the general public. Philadelphia Zoo's newly refurbished bird house contains two female Amakihi, and according to ISIS so does the Sedgwick County Zoo. I vagulely remember seeing an 'i'iwi at the National Zoo when I was very young in a small exhibit which was basically a plant under a pretty bright lamp. Does anyone know if the National Zoo had any Hawaiian birds in their collection previously?
 
I have seen Amakihis at the National's birdhouse back in 2002. There are also nenes in a handful of collections as well. hope that helps
 
I dont know about america but europe has plenty of nene geese (aka hawaiian goose). I dont know about other hawaiian species.
 
foz said:
I dont know about america but europe has plenty of nene geese (aka hawaiian goose). I dont know about other hawaiian species.
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And, rather brilliantly, they seem to have a grudge against ZooChat's own zoogiraffe and attack him at every opportunity! :D
 
Maguari said:
And, rather brilliantly, they seem to have a grudge against ZooChat's own zoogiraffe and attack him at every opportunity! :D
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Not had a realy good attack for sometime,I did survive Martin Mere WWT the other week with not a hint of an attack,but it can only be a mattter of time before one nails me again.
 
I believe that the Hawaiian duck , closely related to the Mallard , can also be found in the UK .
 
The Hawaiian Duck as well as Lasayan Teal can both be found in captivity. What I'm more interested to find out about is if the smaller honeycreeper-like birds are exhibited. Does anybody know if there's laws regarding their export? I realize that there are not many left of most of those species, but wouldn't it be better to spread out the conservation efforts so that the "eggs aren't all kept in the same basket"? By this I mean that if disease hits either conservation facility in Hawaii entire species could become extinct.
 
If i remember correctly, i believe i had seen a blog on san diego's website mentioning something about getting DNA samples from their hawaiian bird collection on the islands and preserving the DNA samples in via freezing them for in case of such an emergency. I also believe that they had sent one of their Alalas or hawaiian crows to the mainland for this procedure
 
Birdman7487 said:
...I also believe that they had sent one of their Alalas or hawaiian crows to the mainland for this procedure
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Yes, I read that blog entry, it was about how they were training the imported male. But this bird isn't on exhibit.
 
The main problem for many of these birds is disease (types of avian pox and avian malaria) they have no immunity to. These came when mosquitos of the genus Culex were introduced to Hawaii. These mosquitoes are very widespread around the world but weren't naturally in the very remote Hawaii islands. They are the carriers for many more types than the types of avian pox and avian malaria that have caused havoc in Hawiian birds. Bringing rare native Hawaiian birds to places like mainland USA or Europe where there are even more diseases they are unlikely to have any natural immunity to could easily cause even more problems for them. If you then planned on bringing them back to Hawaii (because you had some success with captive breeding or failed and wanted to save what could be saved) you would risk having some of them being carriers of new diseases and then introducing yet another problem to the Hawaiian wild birds. Even if the species had immunity to the new disease it could still introduce it to some of the other Hawaiian species that don't. Just like some Hawaiian honeycreepers now have immunity to avian malaria but others don't.

Unless someone could come up with a very very good reason to bring some to the mainland and could present good arguments for why they would be able to do things there they can't do in Hawaii you can also be totally sure US Fish and Wildlife Service would not allow any of the rarer species of Hawaiian honeycreepers or thrushes to be exported. Many are listed on the Endangered Species Act.

http://ecos.fws.gov/tess_public/pub/stateListingIndividual.jsp?state=HI&status=listed
 
condor said:
The main problem for many of these birds is disease (types of avian pox and avian malaria) they have no immunity to. These came when mosquitos of the genus Culex were introduced to Hawaii. These mosquitoes are very widespread around the world but weren't naturally in the very remote Hawaii islands. They are the carriers for many more types than the types of avian pox and avian malaria that have caused havoc in Hawiian birds. Bringing rare native Hawaiian birds to places like mainland USA or Europe where there are even more diseases they are unlikely to have any natural immunity to could easily cause even more problems for them. If you then planned on bringing them back to Hawaii (because you had some success with captive breeding or failed and wanted to save what could be saved) you would risk having some of them being carriers of new diseases and then introducing yet another problem to the Hawaiian wild birds. Even if the species had immunity to the new disease it could still introduce it to some of the other Hawaiian species that don't. Just like some Hawaiian honeycreepers now have immunity to avian malaria but others don't.

Unless someone could come up with a very very good reason to bring some to the mainland and could present good arguments for why they would be able to do things there they can't do in Hawaii you can also be totally sure US Fish and Wildlife Service would not allow any of the rarer species of Hawaiian honeycreepers or thrushes to be exported. Many are listed on the Endangered Species Act.

Species listed in Hawaii based on published population data
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That makes sense. So all the Hawaiian birds previously exhibited, like the Iiwii, probably died out in captive populations outside of Hawaii and were not replaced. This still doesn't explain why a few places currently house Amakihis. Perhaps they're a relatively more common species?
 
yes amakihis are more common of the existing hawaiian honeycreepers and the only species that was pretty much immune to diseases carried by introduced birds on the islands such as japanese white-eyes
 
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