Product Description

Will the ’Alala ever return to the wild? A bird sacred

to Hawaiians and a member of the raven family, the

’Alala today survives only in captivity. How the

species once flourished, how it has been driven to

near-extinction, and how people struggled to save it,

is the gripping story of Seeking the Sacred Raven.

For years, author Mark Jerome Walters has tracked

the sacred bird’s role in Hawaiian culture and the

indomitable ’Alala’s sad decline. Trekking through

Hawaii’s rain forests high on Mauna Loa, talking with biologists,

landowners, and government officials, he has woven an epic tale of

missed opportunities and the best intentions gone awry.A species that

once numbered in the thousands is now limited to about 50 captive birds.

Seeking the Sacred Raven is as much about people and culture as it is

about failed policies. From the ancient Polynesians who first settled the

island, to Captain Cook in the 18th century, to would-be saviors of the

’Alala in the 1990s, individuals with conflicting passions and priorities

have shaped Hawaii and the fate of this dwindling cloud-forest species.

Walters captures brilliantly the internecine politics among private

landowners, scientists, environmental groups, individuals and government

agencies battling over the bird’s habitat and protection. It’s only

one species, only one bird, but Seeking the Sacred Raven illustrates

vividly the many dimensions of species loss, for the human as well as

non-human world

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #264687 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06-07
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The 'alala, a member of the raven family, is for native Hawaiians a sacred bird, revered as a guardian spirit for the soul on its way to the afterlife. These birds, indigenous to the island of Hawaii, were once plentiful, but disease, predation and loss of habitat have brought them to the brink of extinction. Walters (A Shadow and a Song) offers a devastating chronicle of what happens to attempts to save an endangered species when the interests of landowners, biologists, government agencies and conservation organizations clash: for the 'alala, everything ended in heartbreak in 2002, the last time one of these birds was observed in the wild. Now, Walters says, only 50 'alala remain, in captivity, and they may not survive if they are released, for in spite of all the hard work and sacrifice expended on saving them, little has been accomplished, especially regarding the conservation or renewal of their natural habitat. Walters's poignant book is a trenchant reminder of what can happen when politics and self-interest get in the way of preservation. Illus. not seen by PW. (June 29)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
In the rarefied atmosphere of mystical cloud-shrouded forests blanketing the slopes of Hawaii's Mauna Loa volcano, a sacred bird called the 'alala once thrived in unimaginable numbers. By the time Walters arrived in the spring of 1996, however, only about a dozen of these crowlike birds remained in the wild. For Walters, the bird's dwindling population raised more than the usual troubling biological questions that arise when a species hovers on the brink of extinction. In native Hawaiian culture, the 'alala is regarded as a spirit guide entrusted to safely accompany souls into the afterlife; metaphorically, the loss of the 'alala was indicative of the decline of Hawaiian cultural identity itself. Predictably, the bird's plight attracted well-intentioned but woefully inept conservationists, bureaucrats, and local landowners eager to intervene on the bird's behalf. Combining journalistic objectivity with poetic sensitivity, Walters explicitly and eloquently documents the tragic political realities that ultimately threatened the 'alala more than all the destruction from habitat loss, disease, and predators combined. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
Keith Goetzman UTNE Reader : "Author Mark Jerome Walters traces the last-ditch efforts to save the wild alala, revealing the turf wars, bungled science, and, crucially, habitat loss that hastened its decline...It''s a lesson that may be learned too late for the alala, but perhaps not for other species on the brink of extinction."

Customer Reviews

A Somber but Important Tale
In the 1970s, when the environmental movement was at its height, stories of conservation were often presented as melodramas, in which idealist crusaders battled against greedy developers and public indifference. The story of the extinction of the alala, or Hawaiian raven, in the wild, as it is told in this book, could hardly be more different. Almost all parties share a concern about fate of the alala, and many people are obsessed with saving it. The cause of saving the alala is glamorized in the press, and government money is available, yet all of this helps little in the end.
Part of the problem is that those working to save the alala are constantly engaged in increasingly bitter conflicts with one another, which mirror the larger conflicts in the contemporary society. The various biologists, native people, landowners, and governmental officials may all care about the future of the bird, but they care in different ways and for different reasons. None of them can be entirely objective about the means to save the bird. The author details these conflicts in great, perhaps excessive, detail. Perhaps the greatest lesson of the history recounted in this book is the need for an inspiring vision, which might enable those working in conservation to put aside their diffenences.

Saving a species and the natural world
One might ask what is the importance of a crow whose ancestors reached the island of Hawaii long enough ago that they had time to separate from their close relatives of the genus Corvus. After all, it's still just a blackish crow. And one might ask why someone would trouble to write a well-researched treatise on what appears to be a fairly narrow subject. Words in the book's title hint at the answers: "sacred" and "politics". The `alalâ, as the Hawaiian crow is known, had spiritual significance to ancient Hawaiians, and it became a sacred quest for author Mark Jerome Walters. While human activities were contributing to the bird's progressive march toward extinction, numerous governmental organizations (federal, state, and local) and individuals (land owners, biologists, conservationists) attempting to resuscitate the species came to conflict over just what to do to help it. No one, despite best intentions, has had definitive answers. The species is fastidious in its habitat requirements--it never expanded its range much beyond the moist mountainous region of the southwestern portion of Hawaii, and that habitat has been substantially altered by human activities. The `alalâ is sensitive to nesting disturbance and susceptible to disease and predation. Captive breeding has been a matter of fits and starts, and released captive birds have failed their promise. The few remaining wild birds have been captured, and all `alalâ are now in captivity. But what is the future of a species that no longer knows the wild or its natural survival and breeding tactics, and which may in actuality no longer even have a habitat? While Walters's book concerns one species, impending extinctions are going on all over the world. "Seeking the Sacred Raven" shows us how much knowledge we need--and determination against our own selfish interests--to protect the sacred natural world before it is too late to save it and its remarkable diversity.

Highly recommended.
Written by Mark Jerome Walters (Professor of Journalism and Media Studies at the University of South Florida), Seeking The Sacred Raven: Politics and Extinction on a Hawaiian Island is the true story of the ill-fated effort to preserve the wild alala, a type of raven indigenous to Hawaii and venerated as sacred by the native populace - the alala is thought to be a guide that aids the souls of the dead in their journey to the hereafter. Yet as environmental pressures, diseases, and non-native predators decimated the alala population, the most valiant efforts of captive breeding and release programs were insufficient to halt its slow extinction. The problem was not simply population and genetic diversity of the alala, but that there was no safe habitat to release them into - cats, mongoose and hawks would eat them, among other mortal perils. With the deaths and protective recapturing of the last wild alala, the species forever lost the survival knowledge that parent birds had been passing to their chicks, and though approximately fifty captive alala remain, their breeding to survive in captivity rather than survive in the wild is sure to forever change the ecological signature of the species. A disturbing look at shortsighted species conservation efforts, the dire need to protect species by preserving their habitat, and human hubris as it trifles with the sacred. Highly recommended.