By the latter half of the 1800s, introduced grazing cattle and goats, wood cutters provisioning whale ships and supplying the sandalwood trade, and sugar planters had cleared much of Kaua‘i’s original lowland forests, a natural habitat of Kaua‘i’s native forest
By the latter half of the 1800s, introduced grazing cattle and goats, wood cutters provisioning whale ships and supplying the sandalwood trade, and sugar planters had cleared much of Kaua‘i’s original lowland forests, a natural habitat of Kaua‘i’s native forest birds.
As a result, native lowland forest birds had been forced to seek new habitations in Kaua‘i’s upland interior. So few songbirds remained in Kaua‘i’s populated lowlands that residents missed their melodies.
Then, towards the end of the 19th Century, a pandemic disease, probably avian flu brought to Hawai‘i with imported poultry, decimated Kaua‘i’s native bird population, with only Koke‘e and the Alakai Swamp providing refuge for survivors.
In the aftermath, beginning in the early 1900s, Lihu‘e-born Mary Dora Rice Isenberg (1862-1949) began to introduce new songbirds to Kaua‘i to replace native Hawaiian varieties that had been lost.
With Mrs. Isenberg’s financial assistance, her nephew, Alex H. Isenberg, brought to Kaua‘i the Chinese Thrush, Western Meadowlark, White-rumped Shama, Greater Necklaced Laughing-thrush, Northern Cardinal and Red-crested Cardinal. Of these, the colorful White-rumped Shama is considered by many to possess the most pleasant-sounding song.
For years, Mr. Isenberg maintained the largest private aviary in the U.S. at Portola, Calif., where he kept more than 650 birds of some 350 species, of all colors and sizes and representing six continents. Ornithologists and zoo directors frequently called at his aviary. Although he was not a commercial operator, he supplied birds to zoos throughout the world, including Honolulu.
Other birds introduced to Kaua‘i by Hui Manu, the avian society of which Mrs. Isenberg was vice-president, include the Japanese White-eye, or Mejiro, and the Northern Mockingbird.
Mrs. Isenberg was also interested in trees and plants. She brought the eucalyptus tree, tulip tree and many varieties of hibiscus and palm trees to Kaua‘i.
