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  As with many birds of prey, obtaining eggs or chicks for breeding is seldom easy. “I will never forget when we were collecting chicks for the captive breeding program,” Jemima told us. “We drove for miles down one of the scariest roads I have seen in a long time, and once we got to the nest one of the Indian villagers just took off his shoes, grabbed a hemp rope, and climbed an enormous tree to collect a vulture chick to be raised with one other chick in the program. I thought of my friends from the US who would want expensive ropes and carabiners to climb that tree.”

  In January 2007, the first white-rumped vulture chick hatched in Pinjore, but unfortunately it did not survive. When I spoke to Jemima in January 2008, she told me that more pairs of white-backed vultures were nesting in the facility, sitting on eggs. “These should be hatching soon,” she said, “but it must be remembered that it takes time for the staff to gain the experience to get it all right.”

  There are currently 170 birds in the breeding program in India—about 40 in West Bengal, 4 in the new facility in Assam, and the rest in Pinjore. “We are aiming,” Jemima told me, “to have seventy-five pairs—twenty-five of each species—in each of the facilities before we do any releasing, and of course the environment has to be 100 percent safe for them.” Many of the birds are individuals that have been injured—especially during the kite festivals—and cannot be released again anyway.

  Nepal is planning its own breeding facility, but not everyone is supportive. The pros and cons of captive breeding for ultimate release into the wild are, as we have seen, hotly debated in almost every case when a species faces extinction. Manoj is very excited by the recent attention and funding that have gone into protecting the Asian vultures, but believes that captive breeding should be a last resort, when there is only a small hope of saving a species in its natural habitat. And he believes the situation in Nepal is not so desperate that captive breeding is mandated. “We have recently observed positive signs about the vulture’s situation,” he wrote.

  His main concern is that to start the breeding center, they plan to capture many birds; he is afraid that this would have a negative impact on the four hundred or so breeding pairs in Nepal. He is also skeptical as to whether captive-bred vultures will ever be able to learn the unique social and scavenging skills they will need in order to survive in the wild. “We need to conserve vultures as efficient scavengers, not as balls of flesh and bones covered in feathers that know nothing about scavenging,” he told me. “They need to learn about their way of life, which is only possible if they are raised in the wild.”

  And so Manoj, and others who are against captive breeding in Nepal, would rather see conservation resources go into better protection of the breeding population in the wild, continuous monitoring of their nests, vigilance in detecting the sale of imported diclofenac, and fighting for legislation against the Maajah string in the kite festivals. All of this his Roots & Shoots team, assisted by other NGOs and increasingly concerned citizens, is already doing.

  “Only When We Understand Will We Care”

  If there is one strategy that almost all conservationists agree on, it is the role of education. Once people fully understand the vultures, realize the role they play in our lives, become sensitive to the glory of their flight, or simply fall in love with the charm of an individual, they are more likely to make real efforts to try to protect them. To this end, Manoj and the Roots & Shoots team are organizing the first “Vulture Watch Tour” in Nepal, from Kathmandu to the Vulture Restaurant in the Nawalparasi district. They hope this tour will raise funds for vulture conservation, and at the same time teach tourists about the bird’s magnificence and the unique contribution it makes to maintaining ecological balance.

  Mike Pandey, while making the film Broken Wings, learned to respect vultures as resilient and powerful scavengers and the supreme masters of the skies, and he, too, is dedicated to helping people understand these birds. “It is only when we understand something that we begin to respect it,” he said. “And what we respect, we love … and what we love we protect and conserve.” Education, he believes, is the key. People must understand “the dynamic law of nature and the fragile web that holds us all together in an interdependent cycle of life.” He observed how, “when the people saw the link between their lives and the vulture, it changed them … reverence grew in the hearts of many, and they fell in love with a creature that was designed to keep the earth free from contamination, and free from disease.”

  Indeed, the vultures have eloquent and passionate ambassadors. It gives me hope that through captive breeding, better protection in the wild, and the increased vigilance and concern of the people, the Asian vultures will recover and once again, circling the air in their thousands, perform their ancient and crucial role in the great scheme of things.

  Hawaiian Goose or Nene

  (Branta sandvicensis)

  The Hawaiian goose, or nene to give it its local name, is Hawaii’s state bird. It got its name from the ne ne sound of its soft call. Scientists believe that it was once almost identical to the Canada goose, but after years of evolution the two species have diverged. The nene, with its long neck and black-and-cream markings, rarely swims. Its feet are only half webbed but have long toes suitable for climbing on the rocky lava flows of Hawaii. And since the nene evolved on a tropical island, with no need to escape either cold temperatures or predators, flying was less important for it than for the Canada goose—thus its wings are much weaker.

  Prior to the “discovery” of the Hawaiian Islands by Captain James Cook, there were probably some twenty-five thousand or more nene. But during the 1940s, the species was almost completely wiped out by hunters, because there were no laws to prevent shooting the birds during the winter breeding season. In addition the usual invasive species, in the form of pigs, cats, mongooses, rats, and dogs, wreaked havoc as they preyed on eggs and young birds. The cats even killed adult geese. It is the same story for many large birds of the islands—without the ability to fly fast or far, they were easy prey for invaders.

  By 1949, only thirty individuals remained in the wild. There were, however, other nene in captivity—some at the state endangered species facility at Pohakuloa, Hawaii, and some that had been sent to Slimbridge in the UK. Captive breeding began in these two sites for eventual return to the wild.

  Recently I had a long talk with Kathleen Misajon, who has been working with the nene since 1995. After finishing her degree, she applied for a three-month internship in Hawaii to continue working with the nene—and she is still there! Breeding the nene is not difficult, she told me, and since 1960 more than twenty-seven hundred have been raised and released. The problem—as for the giant panda, and many other species—has been trying to create a sufficient suitable and safe environment for their survival when returned to the wild.

  Park employee Kathleen Misajon with long-term (over twenty years) volunteer Lloyd Yoshina banding a wild nene at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, 2006.(Ron McDow)

  Much of Hawaii’s low-lying coastal areas have been developed, and that which remains is under continuous threat from further disturbances by humans and by invasive non-indigenous plants. But, says Kathleen, “Perhaps a bigger problem is that so much habitat was destroyed so long ago that no one really knows the exact components of ideal nene habitat.” Maybe before all the human-caused disturbance to that unknown ideal habitat, the geese were better able to withstand periods of drought or heavy rainfall that are detrimental to them today, particularly during the breeding season.

  The nene face many other threats, too. In addition to the ongoing problem of the introduced predators, increasing numbers of nene are being hit by cars. Unfortunately a major state highway cuts right through the park, and it separates an important nene breeding and roosting area from their feeding grounds. Normally the adults fly across, but when they have goslings they must walk, exposing themselves and their young to danger. It is the same when they are attracted to the grassy shoulders of roads after they have bee
n mown. And those that venture onto the golf courses may even be killed by golf balls.

  Kathleen told me she thinks the nene may never be 100 percent self-sustaining—the threats are too great. “However,” she said, “the overall population is on the rise, and with proper management we can help sustain the wild populations.”

  Protection from Predators: “We Can’t Just Abandon Them to Their Fate”

  In the 1970s, a reintroduction program began in the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The areas selected for release were low-lying sites thought to be historical nene habitat. It was a very simple program: Several breeding pairs were kept in captivity, and when their young had fledged they were simply allowed to go free. Then, in the 1980s, additional young birds were released from the state breeding program into the park. During this twenty-year period, however, things did not go well for the youngsters when they were let out into the big wide world. This was not surprising, for the park attempted predator control only in the area immediately surrounding the release pens.

  Thus the birds released into the wild saw high mortality and low breeding success. Clearly it did not make sense to go on breeding more and more young birds and abandoning them to their fate. A new strategy was developed that called for intensified predator control over a much larger area around selected breeding grounds. The next step was to erect fencing around one large nesting area and a suitable pasture to keep out the feral pigs that were suspected of killing many young birds as well as taking eggs, since the goslings were disappearing even when supplementary food was offered. Once four hundred acres was completely surrounded by a pig-proof fence, things improved, and during subsequent breeding seasons most goslings fledged.

  Since the early 1990s, the population has grown to about two thousand individuals living in the wild, with the number rising each breeding season. They are living on four islands—Kauai, Maui, Molokai, and Hawaii. The nene is doing best on Kauai where there is no established mongoose population and grassy, lowland habitat is more available. Although small-scale captive releases still occur on Maui and Molokai, the current strategy focuses on minimizing the threats to the wild populations.

  Now, Kathleen told me, they are experimenting with ways to keep out cats and mongooses using new fencing techniques. The design comes from Australia where so much work has been done on controlling predators of all kinds. The two-yard-high fence is constructed so that when a cat or mongoose climbs up from the outside, the wire curves outward and downward, leaving the marauder virtually upside down clinging to floppy wire netting.

  Kathleen gave me an example of the danger posed by cats. It took place the day after Christmas 2001. She noticed a goose flying over an open lava field toward some vegetation where she felt she might be able to find its nest. As they are often remote and therefore not easy to find, she was excited as she trekked across the bare lava. Presently she came upon the gander, guarding his nest site. She moved on—and there she found the partially eaten female beside her eggs, now cold. The cat was still there, lying beside the carcass, glutted on goose meat. That was not the only proof she had of the hunting success of cats.

  Nevertheless, the scientists and volunteers do not plan to give up. A few days after talking with Kathleen, I spoke with Darcy Hu, who has been working with nene in and around Hawaii Volcanoes National Park for more than fifteen years. I wanted a story with a happy ending—and she came up with one. It began on the day when she and her volunteer crew got a thirdhand report of a dog attack at Devastation, an area on the summit of Kilauea. They knew there were several nene there, including at least one banded pair with three partly grown goslings. The report merely indicated that the attack had involved at least one adult and one youngster.

  Quickly they drove to the scene, but at first found no sign of bird or dog. Then they spotted and caught two goslings, too young to fly. At the same time, the call of an adult sounded deep in the forest. Not liking to abandon the two goslings—even if the calls were from a parent, there was no assurance the family would meet up, and the youngsters surely could not have survived on their own—they waited awhile. Soon the calls stopped. Although they searched for a while, they found no nene, and heard no more calls.

  Still hoping the parents might show up, Darcy rigged a wire-mesh pen close to where the goslings had been found and left them there for several days, spying from a distance in case the parents returned. But there was no sign of any adult, and because the goslings were getting thin, they were moved to a captive facility. There, fortunately, an older nene couple was persuaded to adopt them. “Nene don’t need help feeding themselves,” wrote Darcy, “but they do have an almost physical need to be with other nene—you rarely see even unpaired individuals alone, and pairs and families almost always travel as a unit.”

  A few months after capturing the two young goslings, Darcy and her team spotted a pair of adult nene and a gosling about a mile from Devastation. Quickly they caught and banded the gosling and, as the parents stayed nearby, they were able to read their bands. “It was the missing parents and the third sibling of our two orphans!” wrote Darcy delightedly. The wild youngster was smaller and not as developed—food had surely been more plentiful and nutritious in captivity. But all the family had survived the dog attack. “We counted ourselves very lucky,” Darcy wrote, “to have been able to conclude this particular story with a happy ending.”

  THANE’S FIELD NOTES

  Cotton-Top Tamarin

  (Saguinus oedipus)

  Cotton-tops, at one pound, are among the smallest monkeys in the world. The first time I saw one was at the University of Wisconsin–Madison while visiting Dr. Charles Snowdon’s cotton-top tamarin laboratory. I met a young grad student there named Anne Savage, who would eventually become the world’s leading authority on this little monkey.

  Nowadays, Anne often refers to cotton-top tamarins as little monkeys “with punk rock hairstyles.” Working with them in captivity on a daily basis at the University of Wisconsin, she got to know them intimately and individually. Eventually she went to northwest Colombia to study their behavior in the wild for her PhD thesis research.

  But of course, a squirrel-size monkey is hard to study from afar. And much like the squirrels in your backyard, they are extremely difficult to tell apart. So some of Anne’s early research involved dyeing the white hair on the tops of the tamarins’ heads so she could distinguish among them. This didn’t hurt the monkeys; in fact, she used the same hair products used by people, just in much smaller quantities. And it is through these observations, as well as the use of innovative teeny little backpack radio transmitters, that Anne and her team unlock the behavioral biology of this endangered primate.

  When asked what some of her favorite memories of her two decades observing cotton-tops have been, she chuckled and said, “Nothing is cuter than looking up in the trees after the babies are born. Cotton-tops almost always give birth to twins, and they are about the size of your pinkie finger with a long tail when they are born.”

  And Anne added that it’s fun to watch them develop. Cotton-tops go through many of the same growth sequences that other primates, including people, go through. In fact, she said, “Babies go through a babbling time where they are practicing vocalizations all day long that eventually come to sound more like their parents’. They learn to use certain chirps or calls in the appropriate circumstances.”

  Today Anne and her team are trying to assess the population of cotton-top tamarins in Colombia. However, since they are still hunted for the pet trade, the monkeys run away from people, which means researchers can’t simply walk through a forest and count the number of tamarins. So they use a trick learned from bird researchers and play vocalizations of other cotton-tops to draw them in. Unfortunately, the team has discovered that there are fewer tamarins than they had previously estimated. Anne told me that when they complete the forest surveys, it looks like there will be fewer than ten thousand tamarins remaining in the wild.

  One of the reasons it�
��s so important to protect the cotton-tops who still live in the wild is that they don’t fare well in captive breeding programs. For some reason, they often develop colon cancer in captivity. Scientists are studying this and are still not sure why it occurs. It could be the stress of captivity or something missing from their diet that would ordinarily be found in the forest.

  The good news is that when cotton-tops are given enough suitable habitats, they breed well on their own and can maintain a healthy population. “As a species, they don’t tend to suffer high infant mortality,” Anne told me. “So the secret is really in building on the reasons for local people to get involved in protecting the forest.”

  Which is why Anne founded Proyecto Tití, a remarkable group in northwest Colombia that works with the local community to protect the endangered cotton-top tamarin. The name comes from the Colombian word for “monkey,” tití, and today the program involves dozens of Colombian biologists and students, as well as educators and community development efforts throughout the region.

  TROUBLE WITH PLASTIC GROCERY BAGS

  Early on in her fieldwork, Anne realized that the Colombian forests were shrinking due to a number of factors, including human encroachment. As communities move closer to the forests, they need to cut down more and more trees just to build their houses or have firewood for cooking their food. So one of the things that Proyecto Tití has done is come up with cheap and effective ways to help protect the forests, while also benefiting local people.

  First, Anne and her team looked at how people used wood in their cooking. In most rural communities in Colombia, as around the world, they cook over an open fire. A family of five uses about fifteen logs every day to cook their meals. The Proyecto Tití team came up with a very simple cookstove called a binde, which is made out of clay. Instead of burning fifteen logs a day, they just need five logs to cook the same amount of food.