Rare Hawai‘i: It wasn’t meant to be a barnyard

70 million years of evolution. Thousands of plant and animal species found nowhere else in the world. Introduced pigs, goats, deer and sheep roaming freely over public lands. More than 265 extinctions and counting.

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Home

Costs (Residents pay)

Policy and Control Outside Hawaii (Hawaii Lags)

Problem Overview

Newspaper and Magazine Articles NEW article Dec. 5 '07

A Look at What We're Losing

Pigs

Feral Pigs and the Death of Hawaii's Native Birds

Native Hawaiians Speak Out

Deer

Goats

Sheep

Scientific Reference List

Don Chapman describes being in a Hawaiian rainforest

Edward O. Wilson on Biodiversity

Report about invasive species in Hawaii available online From The Hawaii State Legislative Reference Bureau (pdf file)

Environmental Valuation and the Hawaiian Economy takes a look at the financial and social costs of losing native Hawai`i.

USGS's Hawaii and the Pacific Islands page. Scroll down a few pages and look for Feral Pigs, followed by Feral Goats and so on.

Link to Nature out of place, Chapter 1 (pdf file)

Controlling Feral Animals (see how they do it Down Under)

Other Environmental Issues

Speak Out!

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SHEEP and MOUFLON: Like goats, converting native ecosystems to weeds and dust
 

 

State Limits Hunting in Bird Sanctuary. Why?

Hunters, State Stir Up Legal Action Over Removal of Sheep from Mauna Kea

Arizona Biologists Help Restore Mauna Kea Silversword, One Of Hawaii's Most Critically Endangered Plants Plants used to be all over the slopes. Now you find plants growing only on cliff faces out of the reach of these browsing animals.

Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Determination of Endangered Status for Argyroxiphium kauense (Ka`u Silversword) Endangered why? Because of introduced game mammals.

The native plants and animals of the island of Hawai'i are at great risk from rapidly expanding populations of sheep: European mouflon (Ovis mousimon) and domestic sheep (Ovis aries) that have returned to a wild state. Sheep are known throughout the world for chewing vegetation right down to the dirt. Unfenced sheep should be eradicated from Hawai'i. The longer they are allowed to reproduce and spread, the more native habitat will be lost, and the more costly sheep removal and habitat restoration will be.

This photo was taken in 2007 on Mauna Loa. Mouflon reproduce very rapidly in Hawaii where their only predators are humans.

Feral sheep near Pu'u wa'awa'a, home to some of the rarest plants on Earth.


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