With 33 taxa listed as federally threatened or endangered the native avifauna of hawai i are the most endangeredbird fauna in the world reed ET AL 2012

The most critically endangered in this group are the hawaiian forestbirds with twelve out of 21 extant species listed as threatened or endangered paxton ET AL 2018. The majorthreats confronting all species are loss of habitat avian disease low reproductive success predation andcompetition with alien species. Conservation breeding also known as captive propagation is one of the manytools needed to help recover these species particularly those that are critically endangered and on the brink ofextinction. Dofaw s conservation breeding project is being used to increase production and provide individualsfor release back into protected habitat to augment declining wild populations and to reestablish extinct localpopulations. The purpose of this effort is to prevent the extinction and promote the recovery of criticallyendangered hawaiian birds using husbandry aviculture and conservation breeding techniques. The puaiohi or small kauai thrush myadestes palmeri and akekee or kauai akepa loxops caeruleirostris areendemic to kauai. They are listed as endangered by the federal and hawaii state governments and criticallyendangered by the international union for conservation of nature. The populations of these species are boththought to number fewer than 500 individuals respectively crampton ET AL. 2017 paxton ET AL. 2016. A thirdspecies iiwi drepanis coccinea is listed as threatened with an approximate population of 2700 birds on kauaipaxton ET AL. 2016. All three species only occur in the interior of kauai in wet 3000 MM rain year montaneforest in narrow stream valleys and associated ridges above 1050 meters elevation. Their breeding populationsare restricted to an area of 80 KM2 on the southern and central plateau of the alakai wilderness preserve forpuaiohi the purpose of this project is to research natural history of and threats to kauais endangered forestbirds and use adaptive management to investigate techniques to promote their recovery. Research and management are focused at the population level to better understand the threats to native birds thereby providing guidance for effective management. The alal or hawaiian crow corvus hawaiiensis is endemic to the island of hawaii historically and IT or aclosely related and ecologically similar species is present in the subfossil record on maui. Declines were notedprior to 1900 and by the 1980S only relict and widely scattered small populations remained. These remnantpopulations were continuously hindered by a suite of threats including habitat loss associated with humans feralungulates fire and invasive plants disease human persecution and predation by nonnative mammals. By 2002ALAL was extinct in the wild USFWS 2003. Currently over 125 individuals exist in captive breedingfacilities. This grant outlines the resources needed to achieve the new directions of the project primarily theplanning and coordination of alal releases within maui NUI and the outreach and community engagement workneeded to lay a foundation of support for alal releases and native hawaiian forest bird conservation withinmaui NUI.