Plan to relocate kiwikiu to mainland draws criticism from Hawaii biologist

State and federal conservation officials are moving forward with a plan to capture up to 30 critically endangered kiwikiu and then ship them to the mainland in a move to prevent the rapidly declining native forest bird, also known as the Maui parrotbill, from going extinct.

But the plan, detailed in a recent presentation to the state Board of Land and Natural Resources, has drawn some fire from a young Native Hawaiian ornithologist whose online petition opposing the action has gone viral.

“As a Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) who was separated from the islands for most of my life, being on the continent away from our home brings a deep despondence that too many of us have felt and continue to experience. It won’t be any different for our birds,” Bret Nainoa Mossman writes in the petition, which has drawn 70,000 signatures.

The Utah-born 25-year-old is a University of Hawaii at Hilo graduate student who works with native seabirds on Hawaii island and has volunteered with other native bird projects in the islands, including the one trying to save the kiwikiu.

In his petition, Mossman argues that shipping the delicate honeycreepers to the mainland will be stressful and potentially risky. What’s more, birds in captivity are known to lose “their unique behaviors, their learned culture, and even their songs,” he says. And the kiwikiu has never excelled in captivity, he points out.

Mossman urges officials to find a way to keep the birds in the islands, including moving them to a mosquito-free forest on Hawaii island.

Alarmed by the multiagency Maui Bird Working Group plan, he wrote up a petition that went online at Change.org in early April.

“I walked away for a minute over the weekend,” he says. “When I came back to my computer and saw what happened, it blew me away.”

By April 13 it was the second-fastest-growing petition at Change.org, the web company said. The No. 1 petition was seeking justice for Daunte Wright, the young man who was shot and killed by a policeman in Minneapolis. By April 15 the petition was the site’s fastest-growing petition.

Among those spreading the word on Twitter was actress Kim Basinger, who once narrated a documentary about the black market for birds.

“I’m just really glad I could bring some awareness to this,” Mossman says.

A yellow and olive- green Hawaiian honeycreeper with a parrotlike beak, the kiwikiu is found nowhere else in the world but Maui. Its current population is estimated at less than 157 individuals and declining, its range shrinking as climate change accelerates and mosquitoes carrying deadly avian malaria move higher up the mountain where the birds live, according to scientists.

The latest plan to save the kiwikiu follows a previous, unsuccessful attempt to establish a second population of the bird on the leeward side of Haleakala in October 2019. That plan, years in the making, was foiled after most of the captive birds released into the wild fell victim to avian malaria within a few weeks.

The latest plan calls for the capture of up to 30 birds — about 20% of the kiwikiu’s estimated population — for relocation to zoos in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Utah while officials figure out how to control the disease-carrying mosquitoes in the wild.

Lainie Berry, a biologist with the state Division of Forestry and Wildlife, told the BLNR last month that the plan was devised after it became clear the remaining kiwikiu were in grave danger due to a drastic increase in mosquitoes in the forest habitat.

Berry said the species will reach “functional extinction” by 2027 unless officials take action. On the other hand, removing 30 birds from the wild population would shorten the extinction timeline by an estimated three years.

“We think it will be worth the risk,” she said. “It would give us something we don’t currently have, which is a safe population in captivity that would be protected from avian malaria.”

Relocating the birds to the mainland is not a long-term solution, she said.

“It’s meant to be short-term, to keep the birds alive and safe until we can secure a site where they can be released safely. Right now that doesn’t exist.”

But there’s not enough space at the captive-bird facilities run on Maui and Hawaii island by the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, she said, so the plan is to have the kiwikiu housed at three mainland zoos with experience in endangered forest bird husbandry: the National Aviary in Pennsylvania, the Smithsonian Zoo in West Virginia and the Tracy Aviary in Utah.

The problem is, among the three zoos there is space in their climate-controlled facilities for only about 20 birds, she said, and ideally there should be at least 30 birds — 15 males and 15 females — in captivity for breeding if necessary.

Berry said the next step for the Maui Forest Bird Working Group is to secure funding, consult with the parties involved and obtain authorization from the BLNR to send the native birds to the mainland.

“We need to save those birds,” Land Board member James Gomes said. “We’re not going to change the climate — climate change is inevitable — but we need to do something to keep the mosquitoes away.”

Along with the relocation plan, Berry said the working group is committed to continuing reforestation at high elevations, managing the habitat against predators such as cats, rats and mongooses and pushing to bring a new technique of landscape-level mosquito control that is working successfully in other parts of the world, an effort that will take at least three more years.

In addition, the working group will investigate the possibility of translocating the birds to the Big Island.

“We don’t know if this is a viable option,” Berry said, adding that biologists would need to look at habitat suitability and any impacts on the kiwikiu or the birds that currently live on Hawaii island. “It’s going to take some time.”

Mossman, however, says he firmly believes that shipping the kiwikiu 5,000 miles away is not the answer, especially considering the spotty record captive breeding has had for Hawaii’s birds.

Every effort should be made to hold the line on Maui, he says, and if that isn’t going to work, officials should translocate the kiwikiu to pristine forests on the Big Island. Captivity should be left as a final, last-ditch effort.

“They can make a change,” Mossman says. “To rely on something that hasn’t worked for 40 years is a disservice to the birds.”

The petition says both state and federal agencies have taken actions to “dramatically harm our Hawaiian species and serve as yet another way that the colonization of this place continues to subjugate, oppress, and destroy our culture and ‘aina. I respect and value the people that I disagree with on this topic, but I know in my na‘au (gut) that they are wrong and that captivity on the mainland will ultimately cause more harm than good.”

Contacted for comment, the Department of Land and Natural Resources said officials would not have anything to say about the petition.