The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today made available for public review and comment a Draft Revised Recovery Plan for Hawaiian Forest Birds. Twenty-one bird species are covered by this plan, including 19 that are listed as endangered, one that is a candidate for federal listing, and one that is a species of concern. These species are from four families, with the majority being Hawaiian honeycreepers.
The draft revised plan will replace four earlier recovery plans written in the 1980s for most of the species. Recovery efforts for two other Hawaiian forest birds, the `io or Hawaiian hawk and `alala or Hawaiian crow, are being addressed in separate plans.
Subfossil records and observations by early naturalists in the Hawaiian islands indicate that most of the species included in the draft plan once occurred in much larger areas and at lower elevations. Hawaiian forest birds and their habitats are now threatened by habitat degradation by feral domestic animals (pigs, goats, and deer); predation by introduced animals (rats, cats, and mongooses); avian disease (malaria and avian pox); habitat loss due to agriculture, ranching, forest cutting, urbanization; and expansion of invasive nonnative plant species into native dominated ecosystems. Due to their small populations and narrow distributions, these birds also are subject to an increased likelihood of extinction from naturally occurring events such as hurricanes.
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 requires the development of recovery plans for listed species unless such a plan would not promote the conservation of a particular species. Recovery plans describe actions considered necessary for species conservation, establish criteria for downlisting or delisting listed species, and estimate time and cost for implementing recovery measures needed.
The objective of the Draft Revised Recovery Plan for Hawaiian Forest Birds is to provide a framework for the recovery of 21 species of Hawaiian forest birds so that their protection under the Endangered Species Act is no longer necessary. The desired objectives for each species are to restore populations to levels that allow the long-term survival of the species, to protect enough habitat to support these population levels, and to identify and remove the threats responsible for their endangered status.
The majority of recovery actions identified address threats to the birds
