Scientists were racing to save this rare bird from extinction. Then came the super typhoon.
As it barreled down, conservationists realized they needed to act fast and save the species, so they assembled makeshift indoor aviaries inside the scientists’ quarters on the research base.
Key points
- To the Indigenous CHamoru people of the Mariana Islands, the bird is known as the Åga, an ancestral messenger who alerts the community of impending illness or weather disaster.
- Beginning in 2005 with field monitoring and observation, researchers realized they would have to step in and raise the birds in human-assisted aviaries to save the species.
- Now teetering on the brink of extinction, every remaining Mariana crow represents a fragile ecosystem and a deep cultural lineage the islands cannot afford to lose.
Bavi obliterated the facility’s outdoor aviaries, leaving an exhausted crew to care for the agitated Mariana crow in a compound that still remains without power just as another storm, Category 4 Typhoon Champi, passed through the islands in mid-October.
Additional details
- For days, Category 5 Super Typhoon Bavi pummeled the island.
- “It nearly made me cry.” The massive, industrial-grade plastic pipe frame that held the aviary together, Faegre said, “looked like a pile of broken bones.” Around the world, countless endangered animals are a single disaster from absolute collapse.
- But advances in science and conservation have yielded remarkable recoveries: The Endangered Species Act alone has clawed back nearly 300 species — the bald eagle, humpback whale, and grizzly bear among them — from the precipice.
- The effort to prevent the bird’s precipitous decline in the wild has been underway for more than two decades.
- According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the species is endemic to Guam and the nearby island of Rota, a US territory, which means they live nowhere else on Earth.
How this summary was made: extractive summary — built from the sources' own reporting. It is drawn only from the reporting of the sources listed below — read the originals for full detail. How we summarize →
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