Having 437 threatened and endangered species, Hawaii has earned the title, “the endangered species capital of the world,” as named by multiple sources such as Huffington Post, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and our own biology professor, Dr. Phillip L. Bruner.
Hawaii has a rich biodiversity due to the remoteness of the islands, thousands of years in isolation, varying amounts of rainfall, diverse topography, and volcanic activity, reported the State of Hawaii Division of Forestry and Wildlife. Some plants are exclusive to Hawaii, but have slowly become extinct or endangered by human contact and diseases brought to the island.
Endangered animals around Hawaii include tiger sharks and turtles, but there are more animals and plants that often go unnoticed and disappear without remark.
Dr. Bruner remarked, “When you look at the endangered species programs across the United States, what are the species that get the most attention? Big flashy things like tigers, polar bears ... what about the little snails or the little worms? They don’t get the money. No one’s interested in saving an endangered sparrow. In the meantime there are thousands and thousands of plants and animals just going down the tubes and nobody knows about it.”
“I don’t feel like the media is putting effort into small species,” said Tai Guan, a senior majoring in biomedical studies from China. “A major concern nowadays should be the animals and the loss of habitat.”
“The process of ongoing imminent extinction is still occurring,” said Bruner. “It has not been stopped by any means. It's an ongoing problem in Hawaii.”
One example of disappearing native animals and plants is the Hawaiian birds. Due to new and introduced birds, native Hawaiian birds have become endangered or extinct. “There were a great many more species of forest birds, but they declined very rapidly and just disappeared,” said Dr. Bruner.
“The great extinction of forest birds in Hawaii occurred when mosquitos got introduced to Hawaii and they began to transmit diseases by bird malaria and bird pox from introduced birds that had been brought into Hawaii.”
When the mosquito drinks from the blood of an infected bird to a unprotected native bird, the bird dies without any resistance, said Bruner.
There used to be an abundance of flightless birds, such as the flightless eagle, flightless geese and flightless owls, said Bruner. The native Hawaiian birds were flightless because there were fewer predators to kill or challenge them. One of the reasons for their decline was the arrival of humans, bringing predators such as dogs, pigs and humans.
The extinction of an organism has repercussions. “When something is missing from the ecosystem, you are going to damage the rest of the ecosystem,” said Christopher Tsai, a junior studying biochemistry from Taiwan.
With urban and housing developments encroaching on habitat, wildlife has limited space to live. Native plants and birds are pushed to mountaintops or refuges left by the government. “Hawaii had a huge number of native plants and animals that were endemic,” said Bruner.
“Many of them are extinct now. So when you drive around this island, all the plants that you see, except for a few exceptions, are not native. They’re from everywhere in the world. If you want to see native Hawaiian plants, forest plants in particular, you gotta be right up on the ridge line.”
If students or community want to become more active in helping Hawaiian habitat, there are ways to volunteer and learn. “Contact the nature conservancy,” advises Bruner. “Contact the Hawaii Trail and Mountain Club. These people go out and weed and do good things. ... It seems almost futile when you look at it, it’s like you are trying to weed when there is a billion more around you. It seems like why should we even bother, but we gotta make a start somewhere.”
The list of all the endangered native Hawaiian fauna and flora, which is too long to include in this article, can be found on U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s (FWS) website, under Endangered Species tab as a pdf. Causes for the animal displacement around the island include urban development, reports the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. As areas for people are cleared, habitat where animals used to live are limited, reports FWS. And as more animals are introduced, more of the native animals are infected with diseases they are not prepared for and die.