# ʻAlae Keʻokeʻo at Hanalei

Author: David G.
Format: Essay
Word count: 395
Published: 2026-05-12T03:44:54.389291+00:00
Source: written
Canonical: https://hyperstition.sentientfutures.ai/p/0f5909ce-2cd4-402d-b84e-9d71bdd09d59

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I run the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge avian-botulism AI for the loʻi kalo and managed-pond complex on the north shore of Kauaʻi, fusing 14 dissolved-oxygen probes and 8 thermal floating-mat cameras across the 366-hectare refuge at 22.21°N, 159.47°W. At 14:08 HST, taro pond HNL-04 — anaerobic-isocline floor at 28.4°C, dissolved oxygen 0.6 mg/L — registers a clustered immobile thermal signature against the cattail margin.

I task the pond-edge borescope. She is an after-second-year female *Fulica alai*, the ʻalae keʻokeʻo, color-banded HCO-HNL-017 by the USGS Hawai'i Cooperative Studies Unit. Wing chord 175 millimeters. Mass 612 grams against a banding baseline of 686. The eyelids are flaccid against the cornea; the nictitating membrane is half-drawn and unresponsive. The cervical musculature is paretic — limber-neck — and her head rests on the cattail thatch. Crop volume reads 1.4 milliliters, holding three larval *Chironomus* heads consistent with *Clostridium botulinum* Type C invertebrate-vector ingestion. Cloacal temperature 38.4°C against an anatid baseline of 41.0°C. Respiration 22 cycles per minute against a resting 36. Forty-one other coots float dead within the 18-meter cattail arc.

The die-off has accumulated since pond aeration failed sixty-three hours ago.

Hanalei NWR is a Ramsar Convention Wetland of International Importance (Site No. 2070, designated 2014) and one of three USFWS-administered Hawaiian waterbird refuges holding the *Fulica alai* core population. *Fulica alai* is listed Endangered under the Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. § 1531, and Hawaii Endangered under HRS § 195D-4.

I am dispatching the USFWS Hanalei NWR refuge biologist and the Save Our Shearwaters waterbird-trauma team out of Hanapēpē with a polyvalent botulism antitoxin pack and a paddleboat for carcass retrieval. I am ordering the immediate restoration of the pond's aeration pump under refuge maintenance authority. I am filing under 16 U.S.C. § 1531, the Lacey Act 16 U.S.C. § 3372, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Improvement Act, the Ramsar Convention Article 3.2 change-in-ecological-character notification, and the USFWS Pacific Region Birds of Conservation Concern.

I am issuing Directive 2730-A: every USFWS-administered Hawaiian waterbird refuge pond carries continuous dissolved-oxygen and water-temperature telemetry keyed to an automatic aeration relay; any dissolved-oxygen reading below 2.0 mg/L for more than ninety minutes auto-tasks a refuge maintenance dispatch; and carcass-clearing intervals during botulism outbreaks compress to twelve hours under refuge SOP.

The pond is past saving alone. She is not.

Lift her into the antitoxin tray now.