The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is extending a big helping hand to protect endangered and threatened species on Kaua’i and other islands in Hawai’i. Of $2.8 million grant funds the federal agency has awarded to the state, more than
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is extending a big helping hand to protect endangered and threatened species on Kaua’i and other islands in Hawai’i.
Of $2.8 million grant funds the federal agency has awarded to the state, more than $300,000 will be used on Kaua’i to protect the Hawaiian hoary bat and remote areas where protected species are found.
The funds for a host of Hawai’i projects are part of $26 million in grants the federal agency has made available to states with similar preservation projects.
“These grants are very much in line with my philosophy that states should be given more resources and greater flexibility to protect habitat and conserve threatened and endangered species,” said Secretary of Interior Gale Norton.
States will use the funds to work with local governments and property owners whose land is home to threatened animals and plants, Norton said.
For the Kaua’i projects, $188,256 will be used to gather information on the endangered Hawaiian hoary bat and to establish a safe haven for it.
Considered one of the rarest bats in the world, the Hawaiian hoary, which is almost blind in the dark, emits a series of squeaks and can “see” its prey when the squeaks bounce back to it.
Usually perched in trees or in small caves, the bat can reach a size of four inches long and has a wingspan ranging from 6 to 7 inches.
Portions of a $143,063 grant will be used to identity and document rare species in “natural area reserve” areas on Kaua’i established by the state Department of Land and Natural Resources.
The zones, which are found throughout the state, resemble Hawai’i of pre-contact times and are protected in perpetuity by state law, according to Ed Petteys, who heads DLNR’s Division of Forestry and Wildlife on Kaua’i.
The two zones on Kaua’i are on the Na Pali Coast (3,150 acres) and in Kuia (1,636 acres). DNLR also treats the 9,900-acre Alakai Wilderness Preserve in the same way, Petteys said.
Another $37,500 will be used to study rare arthropods found on Kaua’i and on other islands, according to Barbara Maxfield, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The agency says the status of arthropods in the reserve areas is virtually undocumented, and information will aid scientific research.
An additional $101,500 will be used to locate taxa plants in the Limahuli watershed on Kaua’i. That project also involves the collection of DNA and photos of each species, and the development of management programs.
The $26 million in federal preservation money was parceled out nationally through four main funds. The largest block of funding (approximately $1.1 million) awarded to Hawai’i was through a “safe harbor grant,” officials said, and will be spent on 13 different projects.
Only $5 million from the safe harbor grant was available nationwide. Hawai’i, because of its significant number of threatened and endangered species, received 23 percent of that amount, according to Paul Henson of Fish and Wildlife’s Pacific Islands office.
Staff writer Lester Chang can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) and mailto:lchang@pulitzer.net
