HONOLULU — Significant federal dollars are headed to Hawai‘i to help address the extinction crisis facing at least four species of native Hawaiian birds.
An unprecedented $14 million for Hawai‘i ecosystem restoration is included in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, described as a major investment in the conservation and stewardship of America’s public lands.
According to the U.S. Department of the Interior, which will administer the law’s $1.4 billion for ecosystem restoration and resilience, this amount “is a significant down payment in protecting our shared natural heritage.”
The DOI is collaborating with states, tribes and local communities to invest millions of dollars annually to restore habitat connectivity for aquatic species around the country and advance habitat restoration, invasive-species control, conservation of at-risk and listed endangered and threatened species and benefits to several significant ecosystems.
“Several species of native Hawaiian forest birds are on the verge of extinction, possibly within the next two years,” said Gov. David Ige. “This federal funding could not come at a better time, and will add significantly to projects and efforts already underway to try and save species like ‘akikiki and kiwikiu from vanishing forever,” he said.
“The funding will assist the state in combating mosquitoes that especially threaten critically endangered Hawaiian forest birds which are found nowhere else in the world,” said U.S. Rep. Ed Case, who represents urban O‘ahu.
“Invasive species pose an especially grave threat to Hawai‘i’s unique ecosystems, natural resources and agricultural communities. In large part due to invasive species, Hawai‘i has become the endangered species and extinction capital of the world,” said Case.
”Hawai‘i currently has 502 species listed as endangered, more than any other state and almost half of the total endangered species nationwide,” said Case.
“Many of these species, such as the kiwikiu (an endemic Hawaiian honeycreeper), on which invasive mosquitoes prey, are critically endangered and face an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. Although we will never know the true number of species that have gone extinct in Hawai‘i, best estimates are that in the last 200 years alone, 28 bird, 72 snail, 74 insect and 97 plant species have gone extinct,” Case said.
The DOI funding announcement was made on Friday. In April, federal and state conservation officials revealed the results of a bio-cultural study which describes the near-future-extinction plight facing four Hawaiian honeycreeper species.
The report indicated that, without intervention, the birds have grim prospects. There are many fewer of these birds when compared to the last two decades, and even the last few years. Their available range has been significantly reduced as species move higher into the mountains to escape mosquitoes.
Avian malaria, carried by mosquitoes, is wiping out birds. Both the disease and the mosquitoes that carry them are not native to Hawai‘i.
A large group of government agencies and conservation organizations have banded together in the Birds, Not Mosquitoes working group to develop a program to introduce incompatible male mosquitoes into the habitats of ‘akikiki and ‘akeke‘e on Kaua‘i, and kiwikiu and ‘akohekohe on Maui, to suppress the populations of wild mosquitoes and to engage with local communities on this issue.
Dr. Chris Farmer is the Hawai‘i program director with the American Bird Conservancy, and helps facilitate the Birds, Not Mosquitoes initiative. “We have a huge group of scientists, conservationists, land managers and others from nonprofit, private and government organizations engaged in a collaborative process to break the avian disease cycle and save these birds as quickly as we can. We can only do that by controlling non-native mosquitoes where our honeycreepers have their last mountain refuges,” Farmer said.
The state Department of Land and Natural Resources is receiving $6.5 million through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for the development of novel mosquito management using non-compatible mosquitoes on a landscape-scale basis, and for the development of additional captive propagation facilities at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance’s Maui Bird Conservation Center.
Other initiatives receiving funding:
• $1 million – to the USFWS Pacific Islands Fish and Wildlife Office, to support inter-bureau endemic-species-extinction-prevention efforts: novel eradication techniques for invasive mosquitoes;
• $592,000 – to the U.S. Geological Survey Pacific Island Ecosystems Research Center for supporting inter-bureau endemic-species-extinction-prevention efforts: vector management for invasive mosquitoes;
• $6 million – to the National Park Service to stand up an interagency field-deployment team and develop tools to suppress non-native mosquito populations at Haleakala National Park.
Dr. Lainie Berry, wildlife program manager for the DLNR Division of Forestry and Wildlife, said, “With an estimated 45 ‘akikiki remaining in the wild on Kaua‘i, and 135 kiwikiu left in the wild on Maui, it’s easy to see we have daunting and urgent work ahead of us. This tremendous level of additional federal dollars will go a long way toward supplementing and increasing earnest efforts already in place to save these species, as well as the ‘akeke‘e and ‘akohekohe, whose wild population numbers are slightly higher.”
Ulalia Woodside, the Hawai‘i and Palmyra director for The Nature Conservancy, a core partner in the Birds, Not Mosquitoes effort, added, “With climate change moving mosquitoes to higher and higher elevations, the loss of more native species is imminent without clear action. The millions in extra funding will support the development and implementation of the tools needed to give these endemic Hawaiian birds a fighting chance.”
“When faced with such bleak prospects for our beloved honeycreeper species, there are certainly no guarantees,” said Suzanne Case, chair of the state Board of Land and Natural Resources.
“However, the federal infrastructure aid targeted at preventing the extinction of these forest birds is a clear demonstration that the federal administration and lawmakers recognize the urgency with which we must use every tool available now and in the future to ensure the natural and cultural resiliency of our forest birds,” said Suzanne Case.
