San Diego Zoo Global has just released a video featuring University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo research and conservation work for the ʻalalā (Hawaiian crow). San Diego Zoo Global, in partnership with and the and Wildlife has created two bird propagation centers in Hawaiʻi—the , with bird releases and other fieldwork occurring at other field sites.
In collaboration with , scientists at San Diego Zoo Global and 东精影业 Hilo have fully sequenced the genome of the ʻalalā, or Hawaiian crow. Featured in the video is the work of Jolene Sutton, assistant professor of biology who specializes in evolutionary genetics, population genetics, conservation biology, immunology and genetic engineering, and Rachel Gorenflo, a 东精影业Hilo undergraduate student working with Sutton in the lab of the .
- Related: , January 28, 2016
About the video
Animal care staff at San Diego Zoo Global’s Hawaiʻi Endangered Bird Conservation Program are celebrating the first ʻalalā to be hatched in the 2016 breeding season. Later this year, hatched ʻalalā chicks will go back to their native forests on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi.
The ʻalalā, or Hawaiian crow, has been extinct in the wild since 2002, preserved only in the program run by San Diego Zoo Global at its Hawaiian bird centers.
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—By Susan Enright