Study: Nearly all native birds in Hawaii in peril

‘Borderline ecological disaster’ as 31 species are listed as endangered

HONOLULU – Hawaii’s native avian population is in peril, with nearly all the state’s birds in danger of becoming extinct, a federal report says.

One-third of the nation’s endangered birds are in Hawaii, said the report issued Thursday by the Interior Department. Thirty-one Hawaiian bird species are listed as endangered, more than anywhere else in the country.

“That is the epicenter of extinctions and near-extinctions,” said John Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which helped produce the study. “Hawaii is (a) borderline ecological disaster.”

Hawaii’s native birds are threatened by the destruction of their habitats by invasive plant species and feral animals like pigs, goats and sheep.

Diseases, especially those borne by mosquitoes, are another killer.

One of those in trouble is the palila, a yellow-crowned songbird that lives on the upper slopes of Mauna Kea. Its population plunged by more than 60 percent from 6,600 in 2002 to 2,200 last year.

MSNBC