Campaign to save Hawaiian honeycreepers gets funding boost

A multiagency campaign to save Hawaii’s imperiled honeycreepers got a significant shot in the arm Monday with the announcement of a $14 million influx of federal funds.

“This is a massive boost when we really needed it,” said Chris Farmer, Hawaii program director of the American Bird Conservancy.

Much of the money from the bipartisan infrastructure law will go to further development of a mosquito control program that likely represents the best effort to save the birds as time is running out.

A University of Hawaii at Hilo study published in April found that a handful of Hawaiian honeycreepers are careening toward extinction in the next few years unless they get a helping hand.

The study indicated that there are far fewer of these birds now than in the past two decades and even the past few years, with their ranges shrinking as they move ever higher into the mountains to escape the mosquitoes.

“Several species of native Hawaiian forest birds are on the verge of extinction, possibly within the next two years,” Gov. David Ige said in a statement. “This federal funding could not come at a better time and will add significantly to projects and efforts already underway to try and save species, like ‘akikiki and kiwikiu from vanishing forever.”

The non-native mosquitoes are spreading avian malaria, which is killing the native birds at increasing rates. There are an estimated 45 akikiki remaining in the wild on Kauai and 135 kiwikiu left in the wild on Maui.

To combat the problem, state and federal agencies and private conservation groups are working to develop a program to introduce incompatible male mosquitoes into the habitats of akikiki and akekee on Kauai, and kiwikiu and akohekohe on Maui, to suppress the populations of wild mosquitoes.

The method involves transferring a naturally occurring “birth control” bacteria to mosquitoes in a lab. Only male mosquitoes, which don’t bite birds or people and therefore don’t transmit diseases, would be released into the wild. These male mosquitoes would mate with wild female mosquitoes, whose eggs would not hatch.

Farmer said the plan is to conduct field tests next year and scale up to the landscape level in 2024 in an effort that will require millions of mosquitoes.

“This is a major conservation action, involving multiple agencies and requiring multiple permits. It is complicated and difficult,” he said.

Farmer said the federal funding will help the multi­agency campaign — dubbed Birds, Not Mosquitoes — better realize its goals.

The state Department of Land and Natural Resources will receive $6.5 million, through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, to further develop the mosquito management program on a landscape scale and to develop additional captive propagation facilities at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance’s Maui Bird Conservation Center.

The USFWS Pacific Islands Fish and Wildlife Office will receive $1 million to help develop mosquito eradication techniques, and the U.S. Geological Survey Pacific Island Ecosystems Research Center will receive $592,000 for mosquito vector management.

The National Park Service will receive $6 million to stand up an interagency field deployment team and develop tools to suppress mosquito populations at Haleakala National Park.

“I’m excited,” Farmer said. “This is the chance to save them. This is the chance to make a difference.”