Declining Biodiversity Is a Serious Crisis in Hawaii

Tourists walking the beaches, streets and parks of resort towns [in Hawaii] . . . see an impressive array of lush vegetation and a kaleidoscope of birds.

Exotic-looking papaya and banyan trees, beautiful blossoms of bougainvillea and the sweet smell of jasmine are everywhere. Canaries, cardinals and Saffron finches flitter about.

But this perfect tropical paradise holds a dark secret: None of these plants or animals is native to Hawaii.

Contrary to the myth, when vacationers come to the Hawaiian Islands, they unknowingly enter a zone of mass extinction, not Eden.

An Ecological Catastrophe

The real Hawaii has become the biggest ecological catastrophe in the United States—the nation’s capital of species extinction and endangerment, scientists say.

And this disaster is playing out in the tropical jewel of the United States unnoticed by the American public.

Hawaii, the nation’s leader in biological diversity, is well on its way to becoming an archipelago of the “living dead.” That’s a term biologists use to describe a species of animal or plant that still has a few individuals alive but which almost surely will go extinct soon.

Invasion by non-native species, economic development, suburban sprawl, even environmental destruction by hooved animals—all these have added up to devastation for native animals, plants and the ecological connections that bind them, scientists say. In turn, this threatens the fragile tapestry of life on the islands, its supply of fresh water, its soil and its economic future.

For years, researchers warned about the impact of wild pigs, goats, mongooses and other alien animals imported on purpose or by accident. These creatures have sucked out the natural life of the islands like movie space aliens that take over a human body, feed on it and kill it.

Only a few years ago, scientists here still talked hopefully of reviving nature by applying the techniques of restoration ecology. But some now speak of “hospice ecology”—taking care of species while they inevitably slip into extinction.

Like a doctor trying to save a fatally injured person in a hospital emergency room, some of these scientists are reluctantly awakening to the fact that their patient cannot be saved.

“Depressing—that’s an optimistic way to frame it,” said Rick Warshauer, a biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s biological resources division on Hawaii. He coined the term hospice ecology. “What we’re dealing with is whole suites of organisms disappearing.”

Said Peter Van Dyke, manager of the Amy B.H. Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden, on the Kona coast of Hawaii: “It’s very frustrat.....



Lost Species

More than 1,000 native Hawaiian species are known to have gone extinct since humans arrived.

Among other measures of the crisis, according to recent reports:

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Spider Web of Destruction Keeps Growing

The small dirt hole in the forest didn’t look like much, but it was a good place to begin to understand extinction in Hawaii.