It Takes a Village to Host a Tourist

1:30 p.m.

In a shaded and leafy area behind the check-in lobby, wildlife attendant Alexandrea Courtney-Wilson wrangles four macaws and two parrots. The birds have been posing for photos with guests – from a distance – since 7 a.m. and are now ready for their nighttime cages, which are kept several blocks away in a quiet parking garage.
“If you take some in and not all of them, they get very upset,” says Lisa Goya-Nishikawa, another wildlife attendant. “They think they’re missing out on something.”

The birds, each with a unique personality, are kept apart from the guests to prevent mishaps. “They’re not pets, they’re working animals,” says Courtney-Wilson, a part-time UH zoology student.

The wranglers also look after 17 turtles and 200 koi that live in the waterways throughout the property. The Hilton no longer has penguins – they were getting old and went to the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore for TLC – but wild stilts roam the property feeding on some of the tiny fish in the ponds.