Seeking the Sacred Raven: Politics and Extinction on a Hawaiian Island

by Mark Jerome Walters

Will the 'Alala ever return to the wild? A bird sacred to Hawaiians and a member of the raven family, the 'Alala today survives only in captivity. How the species once flourished, how it has been driven to near-extinction, and how people struggled to save it, is the gripping story of Seeking the Sacred Raven.

For years, author Mark Jerome Walters has tracked the sacred bird's role in Hawaiian culture and the indomitable 'Alala's sad...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1559630906
• ISBN13: 9781559630900
• Release Date: June 2006
• Publisher: Island Press
• Length: 293 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.1" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Saving a species and the natural world

One might ask what is the importance of a crow whose ancestors reached the island of Hawaii long enough ago that they had time to separate from their close relatives of the genus Corvus. After all, it's still just a blackish crow. And one might ask why someone would trouble to write a well-researched treatise on what appears to be a fairly narrow subject. Words in the book's title hint at the answers: "sacred" and "politics". The `alalâ, as the Hawaiian crow is known, had spiritual significance to ancient Hawaiians, and it became a sacred quest for author Mark Jerome Walters. While human activities were contributing to the bird's progressive march toward extinction, numerous governmental organizations (federal, state, and local) and individuals (land owners, biologists, conservationists) attempting to resuscitate the species came to conflict over just what to do to help it. No one, despite best intentions, has had definitive answers. The species is fastidious in its habitat requirements--it never expanded its range much beyond the moist mountainous region of the southwestern portion of Hawaii, and that habitat has been substantially altered by human activities. The `alalâ is sensitive to nesting disturbance and susceptible to disease and predation. Captive breeding has been a matter of fits and starts, and released captive birds have failed their promise. The few remaining wild birds have been captured, and all `alalâ are now in captivity. But what is the future of a species that no longer knows the wild or its natural survival and breeding tactics, and which may in actuality no longer even have a habitat? While Walters's book concerns one species, impending extinctions are going on all over the world. "Seeking the Sacred Raven" shows us how much knowledge we need--and determination against our own selfish interests--to protect the sacred natural world before it is too late to save it and its remarkable diversity.

Highly recommended.

Written by Mark Jerome Walters (Professor of Journalism and Media Studies at the University of South Florida), Seeking The Sacred Raven: Politics and Extinction on a Hawaiian Island is the true story of the ill-fated effort to preserve the wild alala, a type of raven indigenous to Hawaii and venerated as sacred by the native populace - the alala is thought to be a guide that aids the souls of the dead in their journey to the hereafter. Yet as environmental pressures, diseases, and non-native predators decimated the alala population, the most valiant efforts of captive breeding and release programs were insufficient to halt its slow extinction. The problem was not simply population and genetic diversity of the alala, but that there was no safe habitat to release them into - cats, mongoose and hawks would eat them, among other mortal perils. With the deaths and protective recapturing of the last wild alala, the species forever lost the survival knowledge that parent birds had been passing to their chicks, and though approximately fifty captive alala remain, their breeding to survive in captivity rather than survive in the wild is sure to forever change the ecological signature of the species. A disturbing look at shortsighted species conservation efforts, the dire need to protect species by preserving their habitat, and human hubris as it trifles with the sacred. Highly recommended.

A Balanced Analysis

Hawaii probably has one of the most polarized and devisive environmental movements in the U.S. The islands' environmental media often reflect the highly biased and vitrolic nature of the movement itself. That is the real contribution of Seeking the Sacred Raven--a level headed look at the situation, in this case, the impending extinction of the Hawaiian sacred raven, the alala. The book dispels many powerful myths about Hawaii. It's not the place of paradise many people imagine but a land overrun with exotic plants and animals and of all things, cattle, pigs and sheep. We also learn that environmental scientists and activists are not always friends of conservation but sometimes unwittingly harm their own cause. The book debunks a common myth surrounding the indiginous belief in guardian spirits. Because the alala was adopted as a guardian spirit by some Hawaiians doesn't mean it was held sacred by all. While some Hawaiians prayed to it, others actually ate it. This paradox, which has dogged discussion of the alalas' sacredness to Hawaiian culture, is convincingly resolved by this book. The book is well written, carefully documented and well worth the read.

Trouble in Paradise

Your view of paradise will never be the same! Hawaii, revered as a land of tranquility, in this book becomes the scene of a bitter feud to save a native species of bird, the sacred alala. Invaded by alien species as well as by well-meaning environmentalists, both of which do their share to dim prospects for the bird's long-term survival, paradise begins to look more like the Wild West. Although it has lots of action, the book has moments of profound reflection, where it laments for the terrible human destruction of the islands' natural landscape and thousands of dwindling species whose receding tide no one seems able to stem. A touching and caring book that should be required reading for anyone concerned with environmental conservation.

A Parable for the Ages

When Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson described "Seeking the Sacred Raven" as "an epic from which we have a lot to learn, both about the fragility of Nature, and about ourselves," he was right on target. Like Walters' earlier book "A Shadow and a Song," his latest is destined to become another environmental classic. Written with the knife-edge logic of a lawyer, the detail of a scientist and the balance of a mediator, this case study and fearless analysis of the modern environmental movement is an utterly captivating read. It bears the very message that environmentalists need to hear most but want to hear least: we must be willing to examine our faults and shortcomings if we are to succeed. I, for one, am a world wiser and humbler for having read this book. Although it is almost sure to provoke anger from the environmental left, the book's haunting truth and wisdom are not going to go away. It is a parable for the ages, one from which we have a lot to learn, indeed.