Tagging Kioea: Learning about Molokai’s Rare Shorebirds
Wildlife biologist Dan Ruthrauff stood for 12 hours in Kaunakakai’s Koheo Wetland — blinded by wind and blowing sand — waiting for one of the world’s rarest shorebirds to show up. In his hand, he held a string that, when pulled, would harmlessly close a net over an unsuspecting bristle-thighed curlew — a pencil-legged, long-beaked, speckled brown bird known in Hawaii as the kioea.
Ruthrauff, a biologist with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) at the Alaska Science Center, was one of three wildlife scientists waiting patiently to capture kioea last week. Their goal was to place color-coded tags on their legs, along with geolocators that will provide tracking data on the birds’ migration routes between Alaska and the Pacific Islands, before gently releasing the birds.…
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