A Newell’s shearwater chick that apparently wandered away from its burrow in Kauai’s Hono o na Pali Natural Area Reserve in August is alive and well at the Save Our Shearwaters shelter.

The news, shared Sunday at a World Conservation Congress media briefing at the Hawai‘i Convention Center, was met with excitement by local conservationists not just because the tiny bird has charmed its fans with its fluffy good looks — imagine a well-used feather duster with a beak — but because its survival bodes well for a species beset by perils natural and man-made.

Andre Raine, project manager of the Kauai Endangered Seabird Recovery Project, speculated that something likely happened to the bird’s parents and that as the chick became more and more hungry, it left the burrow in search of food.

Seabird project staffers Heidi Ingram and John Hintze found the bird before any of numerous potential predators could and had it transported via helicopter to the SOS shelter at the Kauai Humane Society, where it will remain until it is old enough to be reintroduced to the wild.

“Every single little bird counts,” Raine said.

Kauai has roughly 90 percent of the world’s population of Newell’s shearwaters, about 19,000 at last count. In the last 20 years the populations of Newell’s shearwaters and Hawaiian petrels, another endangered seabird, have decreased by about 80 percent. Band-rumped storm petrels, though difficult to track, are also believed to have experienced a serious decline in population.

The threats are myriad and often difficult to address. Introduced feral animals like cats, rats, owls and pigs prey on young birds and compromise their habitats. Power lines hidden in the dark kill and injure adult birds as they travel to and from the ocean at night.

Lights from city areas attract young birds away from their natural habitats, ultimately leaving them fatigued and vulnerable to predators. Even invasive plants can disrupt the birds’ habitats and harm surrounding watersheds.

“The birds are doing badly and they need our help,” Raine said.

Sheri Mann, Kauai branch director for the state Division of Forestry and Wildlife, part of the Department of Land and Natural Resources, said the state has worked closely with public agencies and private businesses to address the problem on a variety of fronts.

For example, the seabird project has worked with hotels to limit light emissions, through the use of blinds and other simple technologies, during fallout seasons. The department has also enlisted land managers to help control populations of feral animals that prey on young birds.

The project is also experimenting with “laser fences” to help birds detect and avoid power lines.

In addition, the department is undertaking translocation projects in which young shearwaters are transported to fenced-in shelters in hopes that they will establish new, more protected colonies.

Mann said public recognition and support of these efforts is key to keeping endangered birds like the Newell’s shearwater from going extinct.

“It’s really a challenge because a lot of these birds have very unique manners, habitats and breeding habits, and they already live a precarious, on-the-edge lifestyle,” Mann said. “When you compound that with pressures from predators and humans — not just human presence, but climate change — and it really puts the birds in peril on a daily basis.”

Meanwhile, the latest update of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species, released Sunday at the World Conservation Congress, addressed the continued destruction of native flora in Hawaii by invasive species such as pigs, goats, rats, slugs and non-native plants.

The report said 87 percent of the 415 endemic Hawaii plant species so far assessed for the Red List are at risk for extinction, including the ohe kikoola, found only on Kauai. Already, 38 have been listed as extinct — including the oha wai — and four others designated as “extinct in the wild,” including the haha, which was last seen in the wild in 2003.

The report noted several other plants struggling to survive, including the alula, populations of which have been decimated by invasive species and landslides. Only one plant was known to exist in the wild in 2014, and it has not been seen since.

“Hawaii is an example of nature at its best with spectacular examples of evolution, yet it is facing an uncertain future due to the impact of invasive species — showing how unwittingly, human actions can make nature turn against itself,” said Matt Keir, a Hawaii plant specialist with the IUCN Species Survival Commission, in a release Sunday. “What we see happening in Hawaii is foretelling what will happen in other island or contained ecological systems. Hawaii and other nations must take urgent action to stop the spread of invasive species and to protect species with small population sizes.”