LIHU‘E — Congress members from Hawai‘i are urging the National Park Service (NPS) to commit federal funds toward protecting the state’s critically endangered native forest birds.
The Hawai‘i Congressional delegation — Sens. Mazie Hirono and Brian Schatz, and Reps. Ed Case and Jill Tokuda — penned a letter to NPS director Charles Sams on Friday strongly advising the agency prioritize protections for the birds, many of which face imminent extinction.
Specifically, the letter emphasizes the opportunity for the NPS to appropriate funds from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to continue the agency’s efforts at Maui’s Haleakala National Park.
“As the National Park Service determines how to implement the Inflation Reduction Act, we urge you to continue prioritizing this urgent work as these culturally significant birds face extinction,” the lawmakers wrote.
According to the U.S. Department of the Interior, four honeycreeper species — the ‘akeke‘e and ‘akikiki on Kaua‘i, and the kiwikiu and ‘akohekoe on Maui — are in danger of extinction in as little as one to two years. In addition, eight other Hawaiian forest bird species risk extinction in the near future if no action is taken.
Avian malaria poses the greatest threat to these birds, according to the department. As both the malaria and its primary carrier — southern house mosquitoes — are invasive to Hawai‘i, most native forest birds have little to no immunity, resulting in devastating fatality rates if the birds contract the illness.
And as climate change increases temperatures up Hawai‘i’s mountainsides, the mosquitoes are able to creep farther into what little safe habitat the birds still have, exacerbating the crisis.
“If we lose these special birds, we also lose the essential roles they perform within the native ecosystem and a piece of Hawaiian culture,” the letter reads. “Unless we take significant action now, they will be gone forever.”
In December 2022, the Department of the Interior announced a multimillion-dollar strategy aimed at ensuring these birds’ survival.
The plan, spanning several years, involves multiple federal agencies — the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey and Office of Native Hawaiian Relations — and plans to engage in several concurrent preservation strategies to ensure the project’s success.
Under the plan, mosquitoes carrying Wolbachia — a bacterium that renders other mosquitoes infertile if they mate with the host — would be released across the islands to suppress mosquito populations. Simultaneously, the agencies plan to relocate species, house them in captive care and develop additional protection technologies in the future.
But while the agencies successfully secured more than $15 million for the 2022 fiscal year, they anticipate over $55 million just to fund the program for the next four years. To ensure these agencies can see the project through, Hawai‘i’s members of Congress implored the NPS to dedicate Inflation Reduction Act funds toward its implementation.
“Utilizing the available IRA funding to continue this work will ensure that that project and investments so far does not stall because there is no longer enough funding,” the lawmakers wrote. “With the urgent situation, we cannot afford to lose this time.”
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Jackson Healy, reporter, can be reached at 808-647-4966 or jhealy@thegardenisland.com.
