Maleo Conservation

A bird whose chicks are born from the earth? Not fiction but fact and found on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. The maleo bird is one of the island’s most fascinating creatures—an honor for which it must compete with bizarre animals such as the babirusa, whose tusks grow through its upper lip, and the seven species of macaques who have divided up the island geographically. A member of the Megapodidae, or the ‘Bigfoot’ family of birds, the maleo has a unique reproductive strategy. Monogamous pairs dig deep pits in which a single egg is laid. Once the earth has been stamped back into place over the egg, the parents invest no further care in their offspring, returning to their rainforest habitat. In beach nesting grounds, the egg is incubated by the sun, and in inland, forested sites, by underground hot springs. Soon after hatching, the fully-feathered chick flies into the forest. Many maleo—historically hundreds at a time—aggregate to lay eggs, a strategy that probably evolved to improve the chance that some eggs survive predation by the island’s few but wily predators—including civets, monitor lizards, and crocodiles.

The Human Aspect
Sulawesi people have always harvested the large and nutritious maleo eggs. Traditionally, local kings and authorities regulated egg collecting tightly.  Probably because of this long history, maleo are an important symbol of Sulawesi heritage. The bird is the official mascot of many Sulawesi organizations, a national park, and the province of Central Sulawesi. The maleo is an excellent flagship for the conservation of Sulawesi biodiversity because it is recognized as an important part of the island’s culture and because the species shares lowland forests of Sulawesi with other important animals, like the babyrusa, anoa, macaques, and marsupial cuscuses.

Threats
Traditional management of nesting grounds has fallen by the wayside in the face of booming human populations on Sulawesi and government sponsored transmigration projects that brought new cultures from other islands. Today, over harvesting of eggs is the norm, and other threats include destruction of nesting grounds and predation by introduced species. In Sulawesi’s northern peninsula, maleo populations declined by over 90% since the 1950s and half of the known nesting grounds have been abandoned.

WCS Activities
The protection of nesting grounds is the most urgent need for the conservation of maleo, as low hatching success is a very serious bottleneck in the maintenance and recovery of maleo populations. In 2001, WCS Indonesia launched a project to protect three nesting grounds in Bogani Nani Wartabone National Park, in the northern peninsula of Sulawesi. This protected area is of great importance to biodiversity conservation from a global perspective, as it is inhabited by over 60% of the island’s mammal species and almost 40% of the bird species; most of these species are unique to Sulawesi. The project has three main components:

•Nesting ground management: The sites are kept free of invasive vegetation and guarded against human intruders and animals that frighten away nesting birds.
•Hatcheries: A secure, fully enclosed structure is built on naturally-heated soils near each of the three nesting grounds. Each day, after all maleo have left the nesting ground, the site is searched for newly-laid eggs. These are carefully transferred to the hatcheries, where they are protected from egg collectors and predators during the 90-day incubation. Chicks are released after hatching.
•Local guardianship: We employ a local guardian from a nearby village at each of the three sites. The guardian lives with his family at a post near the nesting ground and conducts most of the day-to-day activities associated with nesting ground management and the operation of hatcheries. Even when he leaves the post to tend to his gardens or livestock, the presence of other members of his family is an excellent disincentive to egg poachers.
•Awareness: We work to raise awareness of maleo conservation and pride in this local heritage through visits to schools, puppet shows, and comics.
Our approach is simple, inexpensive, and effective. In the three years of the project, we have seen a significant increase in the number of eggs laid per day in our sites.

Important Next Steps

With these encouraging results, we are now expanding the program to more nesting grounds in Sulawesi. New components to the project we are developing include:

•Creative new approaches to local guardianship including local families, elementary schools near nesting grounds and NGOs, if possible funded by the revenue from ecologically friendly agricultural practices.
•Nesting ground purchases through sponsorship to ensure long-term protection of the sites, where possible including adjacent farmland as a revenue source.
•Collaborative management with authorities and other stakeholders to ensure protection of the maleo’s rainforest habitat, as well as nesting grounds.
•Developing nesting sites as a network of education/awareness centers and local tourisms sites to spread a message of wise natural resource management.