Hawaii bird-watching: A land of unusual, and often endangered, species

Published on March 25, 2012 in endangered species and General Ag News and Notes.

Bundled against the chill of a dewy morning, we settled on the lower slopes of Mauna Loa volcano, a landscape interrupted on Hawaii’s Big Island. Around us was a forest that had grown up over a centuries-old flow, but for half a mile in either direction were cindery stretches of bare lava from more recent events. In the greens and grays of the woods, little molten explosions brightened the ohi’a trees, whose brilliant red blossoms feed several species of endemic Hawaiian honeycreepers, small nectar-feeding forest birds.

Even before we’d spotted a single bird, we knew that we were in the right place, thanks to the ear of Jack Jeffrey, a former biologist with the State of Hawaii who now guides birding and photography tours. Just a few minutes from the parking lot of the Puu O’o Trail, he began identifying call after call. There were twittery trills, raspy kazoo blasts and what could have been R2-D2 chirps and beeps straight off the “Star Wars” soundtrack.

Jeffrey explained that recent research has traced the ancestry of nearly 60 species of nectar-loving Hawaiian honeycreepers back to a flock of finches from Asia that arrived nearly 6 million years ago (even before all the islands had formed). Of those 60 species, only 18 remain today. The honeycreepers, along with many other native animals and plants, have suffered pressures from development and from introduced predators and diseases. With so many unique species facing extinction, Hawaii is often described as the endangered species capital of the world.

Photographer Kim Hubbard and I spent eight days in Hawaii in December, mixing birding on Oahu and the Big Island with other sightseeing. We found that bird-watching served as a lens on the islands, allowing us to meet locals who were passionate and expert enough to share their insights and help us step off (or in one case very much onto) the beaten path. Continue reading ‘Hawaii bird-watching: A land of unusual, and often endangered, species’

Nearly 7 million bats may have died from white-nose fungus, officials say

Published on January 17, 2012 in endangered species and General Ag News and Notes.

More than five years since the deadly white-nose fungus was first detected in a New York cave where bats hibernate, up to 6.7 million of the animals are estimated to have died in 16 states and Canada, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Tuesday.

The estimate, drawn from surveys by wildlife officials mostly in Northeastern states where the disease thrives, confirmed the worst fears of biologists who have been counting dead bats covered in the powdery fungus in mines and caves every winter and worrying whether the little brown bat, the northern long-eared bat and the tri-colored bat will survive.

“We’re watching a potential extinction event on the order of what we experienced with bison and passenger pigeons for this group of mammals,” said Mylea Bayless, conservation programs manager for Bat Conservation International in Austin.

“The difference is we may be seeing the regional extinction of multiple species,” Bayless said. “Unlike some of the extinction events or population depletion events we’ve seen in the past, we’re looking at a whole group of animals here, not just one species. We don’t know what that means, but it could be catastrophic.”

Bats are a top nocturnal predator, picking off night-flying insects that feed on agricultural crops and forests. Continue reading ‘Nearly 7 million bats may have died from white-nose fungus, officials say’

All about Palms with William Merwin and Leland Miyano

Published on January 15, 2012 in endangered species, Flowers & Nursery, Gardening, General Ag News and Notes and Native Hawaiian Plants.

MALP Educational Meeting—Free to the public

Date: Tuesday January 24, 2012
Place: Maui Community Service Bldg next to CTHAR Extension Services (Map) on the UH Maui campus.
Time: Pupus will be served at 6:30 pm and the talk will begin at 7:00.

On January 24th MALP is proud to host guest speakers: William Merwin and Leland Miyano as they share with us their vast combined knowledge about palms. Their talk will include information on Hawaii’s palms, palm growth habits and conservation efforts.

William Merwin, who has twice won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry and is the recent US Poet Laureate, has lived and gardened on Maui for over 30 years. Most of his focus has been on cultivating palms from around the world. He has gathered approximately 800 different species of palms, creating a truly unique palm jungle within the rainforest of Maui’s north shore. His enduring gardening passion along with his legacy of being a successful poet will be preserved with the recently created “The Merwin Conservancy“.

Leland Miyano, a good friend of Merwin, is an artist, landscape designer and author from Oahu. Leland has years of experience working with native palms throughout Hawaii and has worked extensively with many highly respected people in the field of horticulture and design. Leland’s numerous books include: Hawaii’s Beautiful Tree’s and Hawaii, A Floral Paradise. Leland’s own 1-acre garden in Kahalu’u is renown for its design and features numerous palms.

CLICK HERE for full information on this truly notable event.

Honeycreeper an Asian immigrant

Published on October 20, 2011 in endangered species and General Ag News and Notes.

Scientists from the Smithsonian using DNA data sets to outline the evolutionary family tree of the Hawaiian honeycreeper have determined that the 56 species of the native bird evolved from the Eurasian rosefinch.

In another important finding, the researchers linked the timing of the evolution of the honeycreeper to the formation of the four main Hawaiian Islands.

“It was fascinating to be able to tie a biological system to geological formation and allowed us to become the first to offer a full picture of these birds’ adaptive history,” said Helen James, a research zoologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and an author of a paper on the study.

Fern Duvall, state Forestry and Wildlife Division wildlife biologist, who was not involved with this study but is working with two of the authors of the paper, James and Rob Fleischer, on a similar project with shorebirds, called the findings “dynamic” and “unique.”

Putting the research in context, Duvall noted that many bird experts believed the honeycreepers to be descendants of the house finch of North America. Instead, the researchers say the Eurasian rosefinch from Asia is the mother bird of the species.

As for the evolutionary discoveries, Duvall said it had been theorized that there was a link between the biologic and geologic development of the birds to the islands. The scientific connection made in the study is new, he said.

“For them to show that that is the case is dynamic,” he said Wednesday. “I think it’s an excellent example that birds’ forms are tied to diverse habitat types.” Continue reading ‘Honeycreeper an Asian immigrant’

Endangered songbirds reintroduced to Laysan atoll – Hawaii News – Staradvertiser.com

Published on September 19, 2011 in endangered species and General Ag News and Notes.

Federal officials have taken two dozen endangered songbirds from Nihoa in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and moved them to Laysan 650 miles north in the hope they will establish a new population there and prevent the extinction of the species.

Nihoa Millerbirds are currently only found on Nihoa, where there is a population numbering between 500 and 700. A related subspecies once lived on Laysan but went extinct there after introduced rabbits destroyed the island’s vegetation.

Officials hope establishing a new population will reduce the chances a hurricane or disease outbreak at Nihoa will wipe out the species.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and its public and private partners moved the birds earlier this month. Officials said Monday the project took five years to plan and cost about $850,000.

Endangered songbirds reintroduced to Laysan atoll – Hawaii News – Staradvertiser.com

Deal aims to save rare species

Published on August 2, 2011 in endangered species, General Ag News and Notes and Native Hawaiian Plants.

The agreement would add 20 plants and three insects to the endangered list
Four plants that are among the “rarest of the rare” in the world are now being considered for protection under the Endangered Species Act, along with three Hawaii damselflies and 16 other plants that can be found on Oahu.

An agreement announced Monday between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Center for Biological Diversity, an Arizona-based, nonprofit environmental organization, would add to the 437 species currently listed as threatened and endangered by the Pacific Islands Fish and Wildlife Service Office in Hawaii, home to some of the rarest and most endangered species on earth.

It a federal offense to harm any plants, or kill or harass any animal, on the list. Continue reading ‘Deal aims to save rare species’

A foundation for outreach

Published on July 14, 2011 in endangered species and General Ag News and Notes.

Maui National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters and Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center

CLICK for Kealia Pond bird images.

CLICK image above to view new Gallery

Click for New Kealia Pond bird gallery.

The 7,500-square-foot building currently under construction near the Kihei end of Piilani Highway is scheduled to be completed by early fall. Refuge manager Glynnis Nakai said the $5 million project is federally funded. About half the building will be used for office space and the other half as an exhibit hall, she said. The hall will include interpretive panels and house the facility’s developing education program. Nakai said that in the future she and her staff hope to develop a volunteer program and “Friends of Kealia Pond” group to expand the refuge’s outreach, and perhaps staff the exhibit hall.

A foundation for outreach – Mauinews.com | News, Sports, Jobs, Visitor’s Information – The Maui News

Qatari sheik takes endangered macaw under his wing

Published on July 10, 2011 in endangered species and General Ag News and Notes.

AL-SHEEHANIYA, Qatar — Cobalt-plumed and flapping, Jewel, a young Spix’s macaw, hops into a plastic bowl. She’s well trained in the routine. Her handler, Ryan Watson, sets the bowl on a scale. He’s pleased. The 4-month-old parrot is growing.

If Jewel continues to thrive, Watson will soon move her and a companion — a second young macaw shrieking at the far end of the pair’s long enclosure — to a larger aviary, where they will flock with others of their kind.

Though the distance of the move will be short, it has far-reaching implications: It will foster fledgling hope that this rarest of parrots can be saved. Just 76 of the handsome blue birds — endemic to northern Brazil but unseen there in 11 years — are known to exist, all in captivity. Watson was hired by a member of Qatar’s royal family, Sheik Saoud bin Mohammed bin Ali al-Thani, to rescue the species from the edge of extinction and send it soaring back into the Brazilian jungle.

It’s an audacious plan in an improbable locale, this oil-and-gas-rich kingdom on the Arabian Peninsula. With no signs marking it in the flat, arid landscape, a fenced private wildlife compound extends across 1.6 square miles about 20 miles west of the capital, Doha.

Al-Wabra Wildlife Preservation began as a private menagerie with a questionable past. But it has been transformed into an intensive conservation operation. Continue reading ‘Qatari sheik takes endangered macaw under his wing’

Big Island group trying to grow one of world’s rarest plants

Published on July 8, 2011 in endangered species and General Ag News and Notes.

KAILUA-KONA >> A Big Island coalition is trying to propagate one of the world’s rarest plants that had been deemed extinct until it was discovered last summer.

The Kohala Watershed Partnership received a $7,550 grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Recovery Branch to protect and restore the endangered plant species Clermontia peleana singuliflora, more commonly known as oha wai, West Hawaii Today reported Friday.

The last species were collected in 1909 and the Fish and Wildlife Service had presumed it was extinct in 1994. But last summer during a survey of rare tree snail population, a Big Island representative for The Nature Conservancy rediscovered the plant in a North Kohala upland forest.

Thomas Lammers, a Clermontia expert at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, identified the plant as oha wai through photographs sent to him.

The watershed partnership, a voluntary coalition of private landowners and state land managers, aims to propagate and plant at least 200 seedlings in a 10-acre fenced, secret location, said Melora Purell, Kohala Watershed Partnership coordinator.

“This plant had not been seen for a century and to be rediscovered is amazing,” she said. “Its survival shows the power of endangered plants, which are often though as weaker. Continue reading ‘Big Island group trying to grow one of world’s rarest plants’

Endangered nene geese pose hazards at Kauai airport

Published on June 26, 2011 in endangered species, General Ag News and Notes and Golf.

The Hawaii state bird is an endangered species, constantly threatened by mongoose, dogs, rats and other introduced animals even as they cope with the loss of grasslands and forests to development.

But nene geese have found a safe home among the green golf course fairways and ponds of a Kauai resort, and they are thriving — exploding from just 18 birds in 1999 to some 400 today.

In fact, the population at Kauai Lagoons has grown so fast and large the geese are now considered the threat. They pose a public safety hazard to the commercial airliners taking off and landing at the airport next door, forcing the state to scramble to devise a plan to move them somewhere else.

“With the numbers that are nesting, it’s just like, boy there are going to be more and more birds there,” said Paul Conry, administrator of the state Division of Forestry and Wildlife. “If we don’t take action now, they will even get higher and higher in the future.”

The dangers geese present to airplanes became well known after a flock of Canada geese crossed paths with a US Airways plane over New York City in 2009, knocking out both engines and forcing the pilot to bring the aircraft down in the Hudson River.

Similar incidents have caused deaths: 24 airmen in Alaska were killed when a flock of Canada geese got sucked into the left side engine of an Air Force plane in 1995. The jet crashed 43 seconds after takeoff. Continue reading ‘Endangered nene geese pose hazards at Kauai airport’

Avian majesty is reward for patience

Published on June 12, 2011 in Ag Tourism, endangered species and General Ag News and Notes.

Several years ago Rob Pacheco, president and founder of Hawaii island-based Hawaii Forest & Trail, took a van load of mainland doctors, all avid birders, to Hakalau National Wildlife Refuge. They were intent on spotting the akiapolaau, a bright yellow honeycreeper that was designated an endangered species in 1967. Although the group stayed out until dark, they were disappointed they weren’t able to see one.

The next day, Pacheco led a California family on their first-ever bird-watching excursion. As he was helping them step off lava rocks onto the fern-covered floor of a rain forest, he heard the song of an akiapolaau behind him. Turning quickly, he spotted the bird in a tree about 10 feet away.

“At the time it was the closest I had ever gotten to an akiapolaau,” Pacheco said. “It was so close that when it sang again, I could see its tongue! The grandmother in the group told me, ‘This is amazing! I’ve never seen a bird through binoculars before!’ I thought of the birders from the day before who really wanted to see an akiapolaau but didn’t — and here was a lady who probably would’ve been just as happy to be looking at a house sparrow. That’s how birding goes sometimes.”

“To see those species you need to be in habitats that can support them,” Continue reading ‘Avian majesty is reward for patience’

Destruction of world’s biggest rainforests down 25%

Published on June 1, 2011 in endangered species, General Ag News and Notes and Sustainability.

BRAZZAVILLE – THE rate of destruction of the world’s three largest forests fell 25 per cent this decade compared with the previous one, but remains alarmingly high in some countries, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said.

A report entitled The State Of The Forests in the Amazon Basin, Congo Basin and South-East Asia, was released to coincide with a summit in the Congo Republic bringing together delegates from 35 countries occupying those forests, with a view to reaching a global deal on management and conservation.

The Amazon and the Congo are the world’s first and second biggest forests, respectively, and its third biggest – the Borneo Mekong – is in Indonesia. They sink billions of tonnes of carbon and house two thirds of the world’s remaining land species between them.

The study found that annual rate of deforestation across the three regions, which account for more than 80 per cent of the world’s tropical forests, was 5.4 million ha between 2000 and 2010, down a quarter from 7.1 million ha in the previous decade.

Statistics showed that forest destruction in the Congo basin had remained stable but low over the last 20 years, whilst in South-East Asia the rate of deforestation more than halved. Continue reading ‘Destruction of world’s biggest rainforests down 25%’

Hawaiian stilts make comeback in bog

Published on May 29, 2011 in endangered species and General Ag News and Notes.

On the red mud of Waipahu’s Pouhala Marsh, a Hawaiian stilt flapped its wings, trying to lure away a potential predator of its young.

The predator, Jason Misaki’s white pickup truck, stopped several feet away. Misaki hopped out and walked a wide circle, looking into patches of vegetation for the stilt’s fledglings.

Earlier that morning, Misaki caught three stilt chicks by hand and placed colored bands on the birds’ long legs as part of a survey of the number of stilts born at the marsh.

This year, the number of fledglings at Pouhala is on track to surpass any year since the state began restoring the marsh nine years ago — a sign of its successful recovery.

The 70-acre marsh is the largest wetland in Pearl Harbor and provides an important habitat for the Hawaiian stilt, along with the Hawaiian coot and moorhen, all endangered Hawaiian water birds. Hawaiian stilts number about 1,500 today. About 100 typically feed at Pouhala Marsh at any given time.

Misaki, the state’s wildlife program manager for Oahu, said preserving Pouhala is an important part of saving the stilt, which differs from the North American stilt by having more black on its head and neck.

Misaki said preserving species native to Hawaii is important because “it’s their habitat. These are symbols of Hawaii, a symbol of the people of Hawaii, the landscape and the animals of Hawaii.” Continue reading ‘Hawaiian stilts make comeback in bog’

Rare plants thrive in Big Island Forest preserve

Published on April 23, 2011 in endangered species, General Ag News and Notes, Invasive Species and Native Hawaiian Plants.

The Nature Conservancy says rare native plants are once again thriving in a Big Island forest preserve now that a fence is keeping out pigs and mouflon sheep.

The animals, which are not native to Hawaii, destroy native plants and habitats by trampling on vegetation. The animals accelerate erosion and pollute the water supply with feces and diseases.

The nonprofit organization installed an animal-proof fence around its Kaiholena Preserve in Kau in late 2007. It took the conservancy and local hunters another year to remove all the pigs from the 1,200-acre lowland forest preserve.

The Nature Conservancy said Tuesday the nuku iiwi, a native vine traditionally found in Kaiholena, is among the plants that has returned. The vine’s reddish-orange flower resembles the curved bill of the iiwi honeycreeper.

Rare plants thrive in Big Island Forest preserve – Hawaii News – Staradvertiser.com

Fight continues to spare rain forest from Big Island wild fire

Published on March 24, 2011 in endangered species, General Ag News and Notes and Native Hawaiian Plants.

National Park Service firefighters have spent the week trying to prevent the wild fire ignited by Kilauea Volcano from spreading through a protected rain forest that is inhabited by endangered Hawaiian plants and animals.

Nearly 100 acres of the 2,750-acre east rift zone’s special ecological area, an intact lowland rain forest, have already destroyed in the fire ignited March 5 by an eruption at the Kamoamoa fissure.

As of today, the Napau wildfire on the east rift zone of the Big Island’s Kilauea volcano has destroyed 2,000 acres approximately seven miles southeast of the Kilauea Visitor Center.

The area is the home of the endangered Hawaiian bat, Hawaiian hawk, and other uniquely Hawaiian plants and animals such as Hawaiian thrush, lama and sandalwood trees, happy face spiders, carnivorous caterpillars, and Hawaiian honeycreepers said Gary Wuchner, National Park Service fire information spokesman.

Mardi Lane, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park spokeswoman, described the area as “pristine.”

“It best represents what Hawaii was and is a seed source for plants and refuge for birds,” Lane said.

“It is a living laboratory of Hawaiian plants and animals.”

Firefighters will be working to keep flames from spreading beyond the 100 acres of the refuge Continue reading ‘Fight continues to spare rain forest from Big Island wild fire’

Illinois expert on orchids to bring rarity to islands

Published on February 28, 2011 in endangered species, Flowers & Nursery and General Ag News and Notes.

The last specimen of a rare Hawaiian orchid on Kauai will be joined next week by a half-dozen of its descendants in its home.

An Illinois botany professor who successfully reproduced the Platanthera holochila is expected to bring about 90 plants to Hawaii next week.

The orchid is extinct on Oahu and nonexistent on the Big Island, but Maui has about 20 plants living in the wild and about 20 live on Molokai. The only known specimen on Kauai lives in the Alakai Swamp within a fence that protects it from goats and pigs.

One of three orchid species endemic to Hawaii, the plant is the rarest of all three and appears somewhat unglamorous for an orchid, said Wendy Kishida, Kauai coordinator of the Plant Extinction Prevention Program.

It can grow to be several feet tall with hundreds of greenish-yellow flowers that bloom from spikes around the stem, according to some descriptions.

Chipper Wichman, director and chief executive officer of the National Tropical Botanical Garden on Kauai, said botanists have seen the plant’s population decline over 20 years from about four plants to one. He said no one has been able to propagate the plant.

“This is really a success story,” he said. “This is a huge breakthrough for us.” Continue reading ‘Illinois expert on orchids to bring rarity to islands’