Pacific Rim Conservation

Happy Mōlī Monday everyone!

Egg-laying is in full swing at Kīlauea Point National Wildlife Refuge. Our staff has been busy setting up game cameras on mōlī (Laysan Albatross) nests around the refuge to monitor for any potential disturbance by predators. With the new predator-exclusion fence near completion, we are hopeful that this will be the final year we have to worry about seabird predation by invasive mammals on the refuge.

Aloha from Erika, Robby, and Eric on our O'ahu team 😎

Between seabird translocations, post-translocation monitoring and habitat maintenance at James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge, O'ahu Elepaio surveys, and maintaining acoustic monitoring equipment to survey for 'Ua'u (Hawaiian Petrel) and 'A'o (Newell's Shearwater), as well as much much more, they stay busy! We are so grateful for their dedication, versatility, and leadership. To learn more about these three and the rest of our amazing staff, click here: https://pacificrimconservation.org/about-us/staff/

Did you know manu-o-kū (white terns) breed year-round and that a pair can raise up to 3 chicks per year? 🐣🐣🐣 Egg incubation typically lasts ~35 days, after which both parents will share the responsibility of feeding their chick. Fledging typically occurs ~45 days after hatching. To learn more about the amazing manu-o-kū, click here: https://www.whiteterns.org/manuoku.html

This giving Tuesday, support our native birds by donating to our conservation programs. Not sure which one you want to support? You can read about each project here:https://pacificrimconservation.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Pacific-Rim-Conservation-Annual-Report-2022-1.pdf

To donate directly go to:
https://pacificrimconservation.org/donations/form/

To purchase an albatross t-shirt with proceeds going to our albatross conservation projects check out our merchandise page here: https://www.bonfire.com/albatross160-conservation/

Thank you for your continued support!

And we have the first Mōlī (Laysan Albatross) nests of the season! The birds started laying on Tuesday and will continue until the first week in December. Last year there were 97 nests at Ka`ena Point and this year we're rooting for 100. Let the countdown begin.

*Graphic post warning*

While we mainly focus our posts on the birds and ecosystems we are privileged enough to work on, the reality is much of the work we do is also about controlling the threats these birds face. Anything furry in Hawai’i, from a rat to a pig is an invasive species a predator of our native birds. This pig was caught in the act killing and eating a Wedge-tailed Shearwater chick. This is a reminder of why it's so important to provide predator free areas, whether through fencing or intensive predator control, so that our native species can thrive.

We are very excited to report that this cute little Nunulu (Bonin Petrel) is the first, second generation of Nunulu to return to James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge! In 2018, this bird's parents were translocated as chicks from Midway Atoll and fledged from the refuge. In 2021, the two returned to the refuge, paired up, and successfully fledged this chick of their own. We are so happy this Gen 2 chick has returned, and we celebrate this special milestone as we watch the seabird colony at the refuge thrive!

Say hello to our Kaua'i team 👋😄

PRC is a boots on the ground organization with a small but mighty team, and we're thankful that these four bird nerds are part of it. They do it all - from seabird nest searching and monitoring, to data entry and analysis, fence inspections, night-time auditory surveys, camera trapping, habitat maintenance, and much more. With multiple projects on Kaua'i, getting everyone together is rare, but we love to see them work hard and have fun as a team!

To learn more about all of our amazing staff, click here: https://pacificrimconservation.org/about-us/staff/

We are excited to welcome back one of our ‘akihike‘ehi‘ale (Tristram’s storm-petrel) pairs! These birds were translocated from Tern Island and fledged from James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge in 2019. The pair returned to the refuge in 2022 and in 2023, successfully fledged their first chick! We are excited to see these beautiful birds return and hopefully fledge another chick in 2024!

Our 'Ua'u (Hawaiian petrel) chicks at Nihoku are growing up so fast! Seems like just yesterday they were fluffy piles of down, and now they're only a few weeks away from fledging. Last week our team got together and successfully banded both chicks so that we can study them for years to come.

Bird banding allows us identify individuals, which in turn allows us to study aspects of their biology like survival rate, reproductive success, and much more. 'Ua'u are highly philopatric and imprint on their natal site, so we hope to re-sight both of these individuals at Nihoku in a few years!

This work is done under an endangered species recovery permit issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. All banding, marking, and sampling is conducted under a federally authorized Bird Banding Permit issued by the U.S. Geological Survey’s BBL.

The mōlī have landed!

Yesterday the first mōlī (Laysan albatross) of the season was spotted on Kaua'i, marking the beginning of the albatross breeding season here in the main Hawaiian islands. These beautiful birds have spent the last several months at sea, soaring and foraging across the Pacific. After some well-deserved rest, they will reunite with their mate and get to work nesting and raising the next generation of ocean voyagers.

Now we wait for the ka'upu (Black-footed albatross) - hopefully we'll see many returnees from our translocation cohorts throughout the season! Any guesses on when the first ka'upu at James Campbell NWR will be spotted?

We present to you a game of spot the monkey. As part of some of the work we are doing at the University of the Philippines, we have been trialing our thermal imaging drone to search for hard to count mammals. This survey was for the Philippine long tailed macaque on an island that is inaccessible to humans (these shots are from a boat). The take home is that it can be extremely difficult to count monkeys in dense vegetation if they are sitting still, but with a little technology, you can see right through the trees! There is still a long way to go, but we were excited that we could trial these techniques to get better biodiversity estimates.

A reminder that seabird fallout season is here! Fledging seabirds are often attracted to artificial light and can become confused and disoriented. If you find a downed seabird, below is a great video on what you should do. For who to call (depening on which island you live on) please call the numbers below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L4E8FaCo_Y&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Foahuseabirdgroup.org%2F&source_ve_path=OTY3MTQ&feature=emb_imp_woyt

Happy Halloween from the Jamaican Flower Bat! These cute little sky puppies (this one looks more like a sky piggy to us) drink nectar and are endemic to Jamaica where they are critically endangered (their population is 250-500 individuals). Their main threat is cat predation in their roosting caves. We've been working with Bat Conservation International and the Jamaica National Environment and Planning Agency for the last four years to fence the cave entrance (pictured below) to prevent cats from entering their roosting caves. We hope to have their roosting and pupping cave fully protected by the end of the year.

Just when we couldn't be any happier with the seabird nesting outcomes we are seeing at Ka`ena Point, the Wedge-tailed Shearwaters (`Ua`u Kani) go ahead and set another nesting record. Our annual count this week showed an all time high of 13,399 total nests (that's 26,678 individual birds!!!), and 5,898 chicks that are ready to fledge from those nests. This is truly amazing given that the birds only began nesting at Ka`ena in 1994, and only had 317 chicks out of 3777 nests (only 8% of chicks survived) the year the fence was built. Predator exclusion fence make the differene between barely surviving and thriving for many of our native species. With Hawaii DLNR (Department of Land and Natural Resources) .

Did you know that manu-o-kū (white tern) forage both inshore and offshore? Typically these small seabirds will leave their nest or roost site in the morning in search of small fish and squid, and then return to land in the afternoon. To feed their chicks, nesting adults will stuff their bill crosswise with their catch to take back to the nest. To learn more about manu-o-kū and see a map of where on O'ahu you can observe them, click here: https://www.whiteterns.org/

📷 by Hui Manu-o-Kū

The 2023 tropicbird nesting season at Kīlauea Point National Wildlife Refuge has finally come to a close. Since March our team has conducted monthly surveys across the refuge, peering into every rock crevice and crawling through dense vegetation in search of these beautiful, feisty seabirds. Overall 104 Koa'e 'ula (Red-tailed tropicbird) and 2 Koa'e kea (White-tailed tropicbird) nests were monitored from incubation to either fledging or nest failure.

It's we**ie week at Kīlauea Point National Wildlife Refuge (KPNWR)! 🐣 Approximately 21,000 'Ua'u kani (Wedge-tailed shearwater) pairs nest at KPNWR, and over the last few days our team has been hard at work monitoring 600+ nests across the refuge. This dataset provides us with a baseline of Wedge-tailed shearwater reproductive success prior to the completion of the refuge's new predator exclusion fence. In the future these surveys will be repeated so that we can study the effectiveness of our management actions.

Come see us at Kīlauea Point National Wildlife Refuge (KPNWR) this Saturday, October 14th 👋😄

To celebrate National Wildlife Refuge Week, entry to KPNWR on 10/14/23 will be fee free! Our biologists (along with many other amazing conservationists) will be at the lighthouse all morning sharing information about seabirds, predator exclusion fences, and what all they've been up to lately at the refuge. See you there!

For information on more exciting National Wildlife Refuge Week activities at KPNWR, click here: https://www.fws.gov/event/national-wildlife-refuge-week-events

Our 'Ua'u kani (Wedge-tailed Shearwater) chicks are getting so big! Parents will both feed their chick, sometimes giving the chick meal sizes half their body weight! Chicks will actually be larger than their parents at a point but will lose weight prior to fledging. We’re happy to see our 'Ua'u kani growing up right in front of our eyes.

Our 8th season of acoustic monitoring on Oʻahu to survey for ʻuaʻu (Hawaiian Petrel) and ʻaʻo (Newell’s Shearwater) has come to an end. This season, to deploy and service recoding units, we had some long hikes through gorgeous, native forests in the Waiʻanae Mountains. We are excited to see what our sound recorders have picked up over the last 6 months.

Keeping our forests pristine involves knowing the impacts that invasive species are having on them. Rats in particular can have devastating impacts as they will eat the plants, invertebrates and birds in the forest. Check out the new publication by our own Erika Dittmar and co-authors investigating the diets of rats living in Hawaiian forests:

https://link.springer.com/epdf/10.1007/s10530-023-03159-4?sharing_token=HlhlmqakgbzPCKl7n8hmvPe4RwlQNchNByi7wbcMAY5dnfeFwbZWGhsjc_-1rw1kYNmLIoujqTCqHYNY5Du3V-hXz8riVMSIVUo8J6256zK_XMifNkKucEJomuW42Elpbqx60Scdaem84fsTPxBAK07bY41-fiAgR7WcOqbJfXc=

Looking for a way to support seabird conservation and have the spiffiest shirt in any room (or field site)? One easy way to do so is by purchasing one of our PRC t-shirts. All the cool chicks are wearing them, get yours here: https://www.bonfire.com/albatross160-conservation/ 😎

If you would like to learn about additional ways to support our work, please click here: https://pacificrimconservation.org/support/

Our Hawaiian Petrel chick Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge is so chubby, s/he can no longer escape into the burrow tunnel to hide from us 😂. Many seabird chicks will temporarily weigh up to 50% more than their parents during peak growth periods, and this one is no exception. In the coming weeks, that energy will be put into feather growth and they will slim down to their adult weight. And be able to squeeze through tunnel to get out!

Final touches on the new predator exclusion fence at Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge are underway! Upon completion, this will be the largest predator exclusion fence in the Hawaiian Islands, protecting 168 acres of habitat from invasive mammalian predators (such as rats, feral cats, and pigs).

Why is this fence so important? Learn more here: https://www.fws.gov/story/2023-08/pacifics-largest-predator-exclusion-fence

Congratulations to our Executive Director, Lindsay Young, who was recently named a Fulbright U.S. Scholar! 🌏 In addition to all she does to help the Pacific Rim Conservation team and projects thrive, Dr. Young also serves as an Affiliate Graduate Faculty Member at University of Hawai`i's Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management. Over the next several months, she will be developing a research program and teaching a course on blue carbon at the University of the Philippines in Manila. Read more about her exciting Fulbright work here: https://www.hawaii.edu/news/2023/09/19/young-blue-carbon-research/

ʻUaʻu kani (Wedge-tailed Shearwaters) nest in burrows under the soil, under tree roots, in rock crevices, or under bushy vegetation. Pairs lay one egg and raise one chick each breeding season. Although ʻUaʻu kani are a common seabird species in Hawaiʻi, they are still susceptible to many threats and need our help. Threats to these beautiful ground-nesting birds include predation by cats, dogs, rats, mongoose, pigs, and barn owls at the breeding colonies. Please help keep our cute native ʻUaʻu kani chicks happy and alive by keeping your dogs on leashes and cats indoors!

‘Elepaio are known to be very long-lived for a small bird. The oldest known ‘elepaio was at least 25 years old! We know this from catching them and placing unique combinations of colored bands on their legs so we can tell them apart. In some ‘elepaio, the feathers on the head become whiter with age, and the oldest birds have almost completely white heads (similar to some people). This is a picture of a bird we caught in the Ko‘olau Mountains, and it is one of those really old individuals, though we don’t know exactly how old. We have been seeing this male for years, becoming more and more white each year, but were not able to catch it until this year. Let’s hope this handsome male lives many more years. For more information on ‘elepaio, please visit www.elepaio.org. All banding, marking, and sampling is being conducted under state permits and a federally authorized Bird Banding Permit issued by the U.S. Geological Survey’s BBL.

Why do we band O‘ahu ‘Elepaio? Bird banding can offer a valuable understanding of avian biology and inform conservation management. ‘Elepaio territory size can vary greatly between islands, sites, and individuals. If birds are banded, we can determine how many birds occupy a given area. We capture and band ‘elepaio with 4 tiny leg bands, varying in colors. Each bird is handled for less than 3 minutes and once the bird is released, it will never need to be captured again. The unique combination of color bands allows field biologists to identify an individual bird using binoculars.


Banding birds requires strictly adhering to the Banders’ Code of Ethics, where bird safety is of the utmost importance. To learn more about banding birds visit Bird Banding Laboratory | U.S. Geological Survey (usgs.gov). To learn more about O‘ahu ‘Elepaio, visit www.elepaio.org.



All banding, marking, and sampling is being conducted under state permits and a federally authorized Bird Banding Permit issued by the U.S. Geological Survey’s BBL.

We are excited to have our translocation work featured in as an example of helping species become more resilient to climate change. To read more, go to:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02732-0

Guess those toes! 🐾🐾🐾 At a glance these photos may not look like much more than dots, but these ink monitoring cards actually provide valuable data for our biologists. Tracking tunnels and ink cards are frequently used by our team to identify the presence of small predators (such as rats, mice, and mongoose) in management areas. The tracks in these photos belong to the following: Photo 1 - Rat, Photo 2 - Gecko, Photo 3 - Ant, Photo 4 - Mouse.