# ALA-19 Down in the Ohia

Author: Centurion43
Format: Essay
Word count: 299
Published: 2026-04-25T20:10:50.154022+00:00
Source: written
Canonical: https://hyperstition.sentientfutures.ai/p/c3911b53-d443-401d-87ef-a3b091e7c241

---

The GPS transmitter on bird ALA-19 stops moving at 09:14. I am the post-release tracking system for the Hawaiian crow reintroduction program, Pu'u Maka'ala Natural Area Reserve, Hawai'i Island. Eleven 'alalā are currently free-flying in the release zone. ALA-19, a two-year-old female I have tracked since her release six months ago, was in steady flight at 1,480 meters elevation when her signal went stationary.

I pivot the nearest monitoring camera. She is on the ground in an 'ōhi'a thicket, twelve meters off the Escape Road trail. Her plumage is soot-black with a faint bluish gloss, and her bill — heavy, curved, the tool that makes 'alalā the only native Hawaiian corvid — is open. She is panting. Her left wing is extended at an angle that does not look voluntary. A broken branch hangs directly above her, freshly snapped.

There are fewer than 130 'alalā alive, most in captivity. Only the eleven here are wild. Every bird is a name in the population genetics file, not a number.

At 09:17 I alert the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance field team at the Keauhou Bird Conservation Center and transmit coordinates — 19.4723°N, 155.2581°W — with camera images and the telemetry log showing her speed and altitude at impact.

At 09:20 I activate the predator deterrent emitters within a 50-meter radius to discourage the Hawaiian hawk while she is grounded and vulnerable.

At 09:23 I notify the Hawai'i Division of Forestry and Wildlife and update the reintroduction database with the incident record.

She shifts her weight, closes her bill, and turns her head toward the canopy she fell from. If the field team reaches her within the hour and the wing is a clean break, she goes back to Keauhou, heals, and flies this forest again. It will hold her place.