Hawaii Sued to Protect Endangered Palila Bird

The fence is supposed to keep feral animals out of the palila's critical habitat on the upper slopes of the mountain Mauna Kea, but as the Sierra Club, Hawaii Chapter, the Hawaii Audubon Society, and the National Audubon Society allege in their lawsuit, the Hawaii State Department of Land and Natural Resources has failed to fully comply with three federal court orders issued to stop the state's illegal "take" of the endangered birds.

The court's orders, which date back 30 years, require the state to remove wild goats and sheep and mouflon sheep from the palila's critical habitat and keep them out.

"The state is not taking effective action to keep the sheep out of the palila's critical habitat, and the palila population is suffering for it," said John Harrison, president of the Hawaii Audubon Society.

The court issued the orders in 1979, 1987, and 1998, after it found the state in violation of the federal Endangered Species Act for unlawfully harming the palila by allowing the animals to enter the bird's only habitat, despite the state's knowledge that the sheep and goats destroy the native mamane and naio trees on which the palila depend to survive.

An adult male palila perches in a mamane tree. (Photo by Jack Jeffrey Photography)

Between 2003 and 2008, the palila population shrank more than 60 percent, from an estimated 6,600 in 2003 to between 2,200 and 2,600 birds in 2008.

"Palila are on a crash-course toward extinction in large part because browsing animals are allowed to continue to destroy their only habitat," said Harrison.

The palila, Loxioides bailleui, is a finch-billed species of Hawaiian honeycreeper that was federally listed as endangered on March 11, 1967.

Current statistics suggest that the sheep population is growing in the palila's habitat, even though hunters have virtually unlimited access to the critical habitat area to hunt sheep and state officials carry out periodic aerial hunts.

Sheep are entering the forest from surrounding lands, because the state has allowed the 55-mile fence around the forest to fall into disrepair, the groups allege.

In particular, hybrid feral/mouflon sheep continue to be “widespread and locally abundant,” the lawsuit states. While feral goats are rarely observed on Mauna Kea, sheep are present in both the upper and lower elevations throughout the mamane forest, and reports of large herds, some with over 100 individual sheep, were made during the annual palila survey in 2008.

Because aerial sheep hunting can only be done within the critical habitat, the sheep have learned to elude aerial hunters when they hear helicopters approaching by leaving the critical habitat through holes in the fence.

Palila birds depend on native mamane trees for nesting sites, and their diet consists almost exclusively of mamane foods, including mamane seeds and native caterpillars found only in mamane seedpods. Studies show that when mamane seedpods are scarce, palila lay fewer eggs and their overall survival rate decreases.

Like the palila, the sheep on Mauna Kea prefer a mamane diet. Browsing sheep eat away the lower branches of mature mamane trees, removing some of the palila's food resources.

As the groups explain in their lawsuit, the biggest problem is that sheep destroy young mamane trees, preventing regeneration of the forest. As older trees die off with no young ones to replace them, the forest disappears.

A federal report on the state of the nation's birds published last week singled out Hawaii's birds as the most imperiled in the country, calling the palila a prime example.

"The state is not allowed, under federal law, to contribute to the palila's extinction," said Earthjustice attorney Koalani Kaulukukui, who is representing the conservation groups in court.

"Along with increasing the effectiveness of sheep hunts, the state must replace the 70 year-old fence to keep the sheep out," said Kaulukukui. "The state has known since 1979 that it needs an adequate fence to comply with the court's orders but remains in violation of the law."

The environmental groups are asking the court to order the state to construct a mouflon-proof fence around the palila's critical habitat no later than June 1, 2011.

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