Songbirds colonized Kauai millions of years ago and flourished until the arrival of humans.
Between the time of Polynesian settlement on Kauai as early as the 4th century AD, and 1778, the year of Captain Cook’s discovery, several species of songbirds became extinct due to habitat destruction caused by Hawaiians.
And since 1778, and subsequent settlement, several more species of songbirds have become extinct, among them being the o’o.
Now, only six species of native songbirds exist on Kauai: the akeke’e, akikiki, anianiau, Kauai amakihi, Kauai elepaio, and the puaiohi.
Hawaiian bird catchers would trap o’o and i’iwi long ago at Halemanu in Kokee, pluck their feathers to fashion the cloaks and helmets of their chiefs, and release the birds unharmed.
Their shack remained standing circa 1850s when sugar pioneer Valdemar Knudsen (1819-98) first visited Halemanu.
By the late 1800s, introduced cattle and goats, wood cutters, and sugar planters had cleared much of Kauai’s original lowland forests, a natural habitat of native songbirds.
Consequently, native songbirds were forced to seek habitations in Kauai’s upland interior.
Then, towards the end of the 19th century, a pandemic disease, probably avian flu brought to Hawaii with imported poultry, decimated Kauai’s native songbird population, with only Kokee and the Alakai Swamp providing refuge for survivors.
So few songbirds remained in Kauai’s populated lowlands that residents missed their melodies.
Therefore, beginning in 1935, philanthropist Dora Rice Isenberg (1862-1949), of the Hui Manu Society, introduced nonnative songbirds to Kauai to replace native species that had been lost.
With Mrs. Isenberg’s financial assistance, her nephew, amateur ornithologist Alexander Isenberg (1901-70), successfully introduced the Chinese thrush, western meadowlark, white-rumped shama, greater necklaced laughing-thrush, northern cardinal and red-crested cardinal, Japanese mejiro, and the northern mockingbird to Kauai.
Unfortunately, the eastern bluebird was one of several introduced songbird species that failed to become established in Hawaii.
For many years, Alexander Isenberg maintained the largest private aviary in the United States at Portola, Calif., where he kept some 650 birds of 350 species, of all colors and sizes and representing six continents.
Ornithologists and zoo directors frequently called there, and he supplied birds to zoos worldwide.
