A rare glimpse into a secret world: Hanawi on Maui

Our daughter Tawny Neal shares her experience capturing endangered native Hawaiian birds in the rainforest on Maui.

Many people are not aware that Hawaii has the most endemic, endangered bird species in any state in the USA. The reasons are the usual—development, competition for resources—but there are more arcane reasons, too: invasive species plants, feral cats and pig and goat incursions that kill the flowers the honeycreepers depend on for nectar, and most of all, avian malaria at elevations below five thousand feet.

Above that elevation cutoff line is the only place Hawaii’s native birds are still hanging on.

Our scientist daughter Tawny spent the summer of her sophomore year working with endangered native birds in a preserve on the rainy side of the Haleakala Volcano on Maui for a biology internship with the Maui Forest Bird Recovery Project. This nonprofit’s mission is to study and preserve the critically endangered Maui Parrotbill, recently named kiwikiu. The preserve is inaccessible in any way but by helicopter—but that’s what makes it safe for the birds, all five hundred or so left of them …