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Hawai‘i’s One-of-a-Kind Bird Diversity
Protecting birds found nowhere else in the world.
© Bret Mossman
Hawai‘i is home to many birds found nowhere else. In a stunning example of natural selection, birds called honeycreepers evolved to fill many different roles in Hawaiian ecosystems. Tragically, many native Hawaiian birds have gone extinct, including over half of the honeycreepers. The threats they face include habitat loss, disease, and introduced mammal species that prey on them. But some honeycreepers, such as a bird called the Palila, hang on to survival. Efforts to protect the Palila from invasive species could help the birds thrive again.
BirdNote®
Hawai‘i’s One-of-a-Kind Bird Diversity
Adapted from the Threatened podcast
This is BirdNote.
[Palila song]
Hawai‘i is home to many birds found nowhere else. In a stunning example of natural selection, birds called honeycreepers evolved to fill many different roles in Hawaiian ecosystems. It’s a process called adaptive radiation, says Colleen Cole, the program manager of the Three Mountain Alliance.
Colleen Cole: The story of, especially the adaptive radiation of honeycreepers is the one that should blow everybody away. A small flock of some kind of Eurasian finch found their way to these emerging islands in the middle of the vast Pacific — blown way off course, from somewhere, the small flock of finches found their way here and they stayed here. And this is one species that radiated into dozens of species and they filled every niche available.
Tragically, many native Hawaiian birds have gone extinct, including over half of the honeycreepers. The threats they face include habitat loss, disease, and introduced mammal species that prey on them. But some honeycreepers, such as a bird called the Palila, hang on to survival.
Alex Wang: I think this is a saveable species, frankly.
This is Alex Wang, a wildlife biologist for the state. He says there are ways to protect Palila from danger.
Alex Wang: Palila country up here, it’d be a perfect place to build a predator proof fence that’ll keep out cats, mongoose and rats. And if we put that where Palila are breeding, they’ll have a good chance to rebound.
Learn more about Hawai’i’s birds and the people working to save them on the Threatened podcast. Listen in your podcast app or at BirdNote.org. I’m Ari Daniel.
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Senior Producer: John Kessler
Content Director: Allison Wilson
Producer: Mark Bramhill
Managing Producer: Conor Gearin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2022 BirdNote August 2022
Narrator: Ari Daniel
ID# honeycreeper-02-2022-08-11 honeycreeper-02
