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Photo Credit: Bret Robertson

The tropical paradise of Kauai, or the Garden Isle as many know it, is home to some of the rarest species on the earth.  With an abundance of flora and fauna covering the greenest of all the Hawaiian Islands, Kauai’s weather provides the perfect balance of sun and rain to nurture such wildlife. However, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service added 48 species to the endangered species list this week, making Kauai’s role in their survival a critical one.

Many of the newly added species have been on the candidate list for decades, awaiting protection. Two of the species are birds, one is a picture-wing fly, and 45 of the species are plants. According to many concerned biologists and Hawaii natives, the Obama Administration had been moving too slowly, with only two species on the list until last week. But President Obama’s first major listing protects endangered species in his home state of Hawaii, where he was born and attended high school.

The two birds added to the endangered species list are both Hawaiian honeycreepers in the finch family – the akekee, or Kauai akepa, and the akikiki, or Kauai creeper. Both of these species were considered common into the early 1960s. The picture-wing fly, Drosophila sharpi, is found in Kauai’s wet forests and now joins 12 other Hawaiian picture-wing flies on the endangered species list. The 45 plant species now listed as endangered include ferns, vines, shrubs and trees found exclusively on Kauai. Twenty-three of the plant species have fewer than 50 individuals remaining in the wild, and some have not been seen for several years, although they are still believed to exist in remote areas.

Secretary of Interior, Ken Salazar, said that the government would also be declaring more than 40 square miles on Kauai as critical habitat. This will help the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service adopt a new approach to protecting endangered species by restoring vitality to the broad ecosystems they inhabit. With these additions to the endangered species list, Kauai has been given a new hope at conservation.

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