Introduced species and climate
change are threatening Kaua’i’s native Honeycreepers with extinction; the once
noisy forest is falling quiet.
When conjuring an image of
Hawai’i, many people think of beautiful sandy beaches with tall palm trees
overhead. But there is more to Hawai’i, and some of the islands’ habitats holds
a starkly different reality. The lush fern forests with trees covered in moss
are certainly beautiful, but much has changed since humans arrived, and over
the past few decades the normal sounds of native birds have dissipated. Lisa
Crampton coordinator of the Kaua’i Forest Bird Recovery Project comments:
We wouldn’t be able to have a
conversation…It was a much, much noisier forest, but in the last 10-15 years,
many of our species are in 70 to 90 percent declines — that’s how fast the
populations are collapsing.
Kaua’i’s native forests were once
home to a variety of endemic Hawaiian honeycreepers that made the forest come
to life with the sounds of their songs, but the introduction of invasive
species, now compounded with climate change and habitat loss, is altering
Hawai’I’s soundscape. Predation by invasive feral cats and rats has diminished
populations of many native Hawaiian species. Now, invasive mosquitoes too are
increasing the risk of extinction by introducing avian diseases to these bird
populations.
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