Living in the cool and lush mountains of the island of Kauaʻi, for many years this honeycreeper species was out of the range of non-native mosquitoes, but rising temperatures from climate change have enabled the biting insects to find their way up to these peaks.
The ‘akikiki, a small, gray bird native to Hawaii, may not look remarkable, but its rarity is. Only five are thought to remain in the wild, and according to the state’s Department of Land and Natural Resources, the species could go extinct within months.
The biggest threat to the tiny birds is from malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Living in the cool and lush mountains of the island of Kauaʻi, for many years this honeycreeper species was out of the range of non-native mosquitoes, but rising temperatures from climate change have enabled the biting insects to find their way up to these peaks – with terrible consequences.
“The populations have basically taken a nosedive over the last 15 to 20 years as the climate has changed and mosquitoes are going higher and higher in elevation,” said Hannah Bailey, wildlife care manager of the Hawaii Endangered Forest Bird Conservation Program for the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. With no resistance to mosquito-borne diseases, the birds are falling victim to avian malaria, which “is almost always fatal to most of the small honeyeater adults,” she explains.
With populations at an all-time low, conservationists like Bailey, along with the Kauaʻi Forest Bird Recovery Project and Department of Land and Natural Resources, are ramping up efforts to save the species from extinction by building up an insurance population in bird conservation centers on Kauaʻi and Maui islands.
