According to a press release issued by the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), a significant amount of federal funding will be sent to Hawaiʻi to help address the extinction crisis facing at least four species of native Hawaiian birds, including Kauaʻi’s ʻakikiki and ʻakekeʻe.
A few weeks ago staff members, Hannah Landwerlen and Evan checked a Puaiohi nest that they have been monitoring in the Alaka’i and found that the nestling and the female were killed by a predator. When Field Leader, Justin Hite first started this job in 2015, he went to check that same nest and also found the female torn to pieces. These kind of events are particularly hard for the staff at KFBRP, because their positions here are way more than just jobs.
In a recent DLNR Press release (below) and news conference (video below), experts discuss the extinction crisis faced by some of Hawai’i’s rarest forest birds. A report was presented to decision makers offering a selection of actions to address the current crisis. Also included in the report are conservation strategies for other species. Experts warn that if no action is taken four species of forest birds would face extinction within 1-10 years and as many as 11 additional extinctions would occur in the next decade.
Hawaii Invasive Species Awareness Month is an event designed to raise awareness of the impacts of invasive species while also recognizing the work being done to protect against them. HISAM is hosted by the Department of Agriculture (DOA) and the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR), with both agencies serving as co-leads of the Hawaiʻi Invasive Species Council (HISC).
The Winter 2021 Newsletter is now available.
Extinction is one of those things that happens very slowly at first, and then all of a sudden a species is gone forever.
Adenophorus periens
As described below in a recent DLNR press release, two field technicians discovered a rare fern, Adenophorus periens, on Kaua’i.
It was last seen on Hawai‘i Island five years ago and thought possibly to be extinct. A rare, critically endangered fern that grows on ʻōhiʻa and on a few other native trees was recently discovered by a team from the Hawai‘i Plant Extinction Prevention Program (PEPP).
In May, Susan Deans and Scott Heintzman were near the end of their workday, climbing up waterfalls and bushwhacking through the brush on the way back to a helicopter landing zone, when they spotted it.
“It was really exciting to find this pendant kihi fern (Adenophorus periens), which is one of the more recent extinctions in the wild. We’re always looking for it when we’re in the field and we have GPS points where it used to be found on Kaua‘i, so when we’re in those areas we’re always scanning every tree, looking at all the ferns in the same genus. We always have our eyes out for it, so while it was in the back of our minds, I don’t think either of us were expecting to see it on a tree trunk right in front of us. It was a big surprise and extremely exciting,” said Deans.
Heintzman added, “We’d been looking at other ferns that look like this fern, thousands and thousands of them really closely. We joked all the time that one day we were going to see one. What an exciting discovery. Just out of nowhere and it was right there in our faces.”
PEPP is now in the process of talking to different plant experts and propagators to see if they can get a frond (sporophyte), the reproductive part of the fern, growing in a nursery. Heintzman dismisses any notion that a single plant can’t lead to recovery of an entire species. “A lot of our rare, native plants got here from just one plant. There’s great hope that they can recover and regenerate off even one plant.”
The pair of PEPP field technicians believes the discovery is a point of light, as many experts believed this pendant kihi fern was likely extinct. For their single discovery the biggest concern is prolonged drought conditions created by global warming and habitat modification, both of which can lead to an invasion of weeds.
Recovery is a multi-step process, as Heintzman believes it takes propagules four or five years to grow into an adult fern. Deans added, “We want to see what stage of life cycle this fern is in when we visit it again. We need to time it so we can collect spores when it is fertile. If we can reproduce it in the nursery the next thing is to figure out how to attach and anchor it to a tree. That’s definitely going to be a challenge…another steppingstone.”
PEPP and the State’s Hawai‘i Rare Plant Program characterize the fate of 250 native plant species as an “extinction crisis.” The recent discovery of the Adenophorus periens on Kaua‘i is a case study as to what can happen due to the concerted efforts of the people working to reverse the course of native plant extinctions.
According to botanist Matt Keir, of the rare plant program, the species was classified as Critically Endangered (Possibly Extinct) by an IUCN Red List assessment in 2015. “This rank is given to species when we still think there is a chance it will be found alive again, and thankfully that was correct in this case,” Keir explained. The fern will still be ranked as Critically Endangered but will be updated to remove the “(Possibly Extinct)” ranking.
At the time of listing in 1994 there were 1,280 known individuals of Adenophorus periens on the islands of Kaua‘i, Moloka‘i, and Hawai‘i. The last known plant on Molokai was observed dead in 2004. By 2009, the total statewide population had declined to an estimated 51-123 plants. By 2012, only 31 plants were remaining on Kaua‘i and fewer than ten on Hawai‘i Island where the last individual was observed to have died in April 2015. Surveys conducted in that region since have not found any more live plants. By 2019, no plants had been observed during surveys on Kaua‘i and the species was considered possibly extinct by PEPP.
The good news, according to Adam Williams a DOFAW Botanist on Kaua‘i, is, “From that first plant found in May, the Olinda Rare Plant Facility on Maui, has five gametophytes growing (first stage of fern life cycle) from spores that Scott and Susan collected. The PEPP team has found two more populations, one with one plant, another with at least two plants. So, there are now three populations with at least four plants total in the wild on Kaua‘i, and some material in the first stages of propagation.
The search for rare and endangered plants is featured in the new documentary, Cliff Dwellers of Kaua‘i…and the people who hang with them!
Wild Souls: Freedom and Flourishing in the Non-Human World, a new book with a groundbreaking and provocative vision for our relationships with–and responsibilities toward–the planet’s wild animals by acclaimed environmental writer, Emma Marris, is now available on Amazon.
Protecting wild animals and preserving the environment are two ideals so seemingly compatible as to be almost inseparable. But in fact, between animal welfare and conservation science there exists a space of underexamined and unresolved tension: wildness itself. When is it right to capture or feed wild animals for the good of their species? How do we balance the rights of introduced species with those already established within an ecosystem? Can hunting be ecological? Are any animals truly wild on a planet that humans have so thoroughly changed? No clear guidelines yet exist to help us resolve such questions.
Transporting readers into the field with scientists tackling these profound challenges, Emma Marris tells the affecting and inspiring stories of animals around the globe–from Peruvian monkeys to Australian bilbies, rare Hawai’ian birds to majestic Oregon wolves. And she offers a companionable tour of the philosophical ideas that may steer our search for sustainability and justice in the non-human world. Revealing just how intertwined animal life and human life really are, Wild Souls will change the way we think about nature-and our place within it.
KFBRP Scientists are transported to the Alaka’i Plateau by Helicopter
And just who are these scientists that transport the readers (and the author) into the field? They are not just fabrications of fiction writing. In the chapter titled, “The Flight of the ‘Akikiki”, a small curly haired woman emerges from a car and hands off a flight suit to the author. That scientist is none other than KFBRP’s leader, Lisa “Cali” Crampton. Her mission: saving Kauai’s Forest Birds from the “abyss of extinction”. The readers are then transported by means of a red helicopter lacking doors into the depths of the Alaka’i.
It is significant to note that the author was inspired to include a whole chapter dedicated to plight of Hawaiian forest birds, some of which may face imminent extinction. She contrasts a time when Hawaiians trapped the birds to fashion feather cloaks for royalty. Some may speculate that this act alone contributed to the demise of these species, but the fact is that the Hawaiian understood nature in a way where they could interact with the birds in a sustainable manner, taking only 2 or 3 feathers before releasing the birds back into their habitat. This concept is largely forgotten today. Hawaiians recognized the value of each species and its role in the overall health of the environment. This is how the scientists at KFBRP view the species as well, each with an important role maintaining the balance within the forest ecosystem.
If you care about animals and nature, this book will provide you with a new perspective on nature and its wild souls.
Lisa “Cali” Crampton in the field with Emma Marris, author of Wild Souls
Robby Kohley
Daniel Dennison, State of Hawaii