One Small Seabird Egg Offers Hope for Hawai’i’s Biodiversity

At the northern tip of Kaua‘i, nestled deep among the Hawaiian island’s vertical slopes and cliffs, scientists recently came upon a seemingly ordinary object with extraordinary potential: a single white egg.

This August, if all goes as planned, the palm-sized sphere will hatch into an intrepid little seabird known as a Newell’s shearwater. A black-topped bird with a white underbelly, shearwaters once filled Hawai’i’s skies with their unique braying birdsong, but over the past few decades their population has taken a nosedive.

As the first shearwater egg ever produced at the Nihoku Ecosystem Restoration Project on Kaua‘i, this monumental milestone is the result of a groundbreaking effort hatched several years ago among scientists and bird enthusiasts — and funded in part by the successful litigation of Earthjustice lawyers. Having already notched a number of small yet significant successes, translocation projects like Nihoku’s serve as living proof that innovative science, commonsense measures, and smart litigation can rescue the most imperiled species among us — even amidst a worsening biodiversity crisis.

A Newells shearwater (ʻaʻo) chick carefully removed from a burrow to be moved to the protected Nihoku area of the Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge on Kaua‘i. (Andre Raine / Kauaʻi Endangered Seabird Recovery Project)

Harbingers of Biodiversity Loss

The Newell’s shearwater was once abundant on all the main Hawaiian Islands, and many Native Hawaiians have a deep cultural connection to the endemic seabird. Known in Hawaiian as ‘a‘o because of its distinctive call, the shearwater even appears in the Kumulipo, the Hawaiian creation chant.

Shearwaters spend most of their life at sea, where they travel thousands of miles and dive more than 100 feet deep into waters in search of small fish and squid. Once ready to breed, at about five or six years, they make a nocturnal return to their original nesting sites hidden deep within the mountains. Like ancient seafarers, shearwaters are guided by only the moon, the stars, and generational memory.

Over the past few decades, Newell’s shearwater numbers have plummeted by as much as 94% on Kauai, where the majority of the population remains today. Invasive predators like cats, rats, and pigs are a major threat. But so too are artificial lights and power lines. The former mimic natural light and can confuse the birds to exhaustion, while collisions with the latter can break a bird’s bones or tear off its feathers and skin. Once grounded, shearwaters face an almost-certain death due to a body type built for taking off from a sheer cliff face, not a flat level surface.

The shearwaters’ decline is part of a larger trend, both in Hawai‘i and around the world. According to the American Bird Conservancy, 95 of Hawai‘i’s 142 endemic bird species have become extinct since humans first arrived, earning it a reputation as the “bird extinction capital of the world.” Worldwide, scientists predict that nearly 40% of all animal and plant species will face extinction by the end of this century, upending irreplaceable ecosystems and disrupting human civilization.

For more than three decades, Earthjustice’s Mid-Pacific office has been involved in advocacy and litigation efforts to protect Hawai‘i’s imperiled seabirds. In the early 90s, after Earthjustice attorneys learned of a utility company’s plan to string power lines in a valley on the North Shore of Kaua‘i, they sued the utility for its reckless proposal, which was sited smack in the middle of an important flyway for birds. At the time, both Newell’s shearwaters and Hawaiian petrels, another endemic seabird whose call gave it its Hawaiian name, ʻua‘u, were already gravely imperiled and listed under the Endangered Species Act.

“Facing the decline of entire species in Hawaiʻi is deeply unsettling,” says Earthjustice attorney David Henkin, who helps lead the imperiled seabird litigation. “Who wants to imagine Hawaiʻi without the distinctive calls of the ‘a‘o and ʻua‘u ?”

The Earthjustice lawsuit eventually blocked the North Shore power line proposal, and it forced the utility to fund a study on power line interactions that would become useful in future advocacy. Yet the utility, later taken over by the Kaua‘i Island Utility Cooperative, refused to implement commonsense measures for existing power lines like undergrounding, rerouting, and reconfiguring them to reduce seabird deaths.

Over the next several years, Earthjustice expanded its efforts to protect Hawaiʻi’s seabirds by suing the utility for the injury and death that its power lines and streetlights inflict on shearwaters and petrels island-wide, as highlighted in the utility’s own study. Additionally, Earthjustice sued the St. Regis Princeville Resort, a luxury hotel that, at the time, was responsible for the greatest number of deaths and injuries of imperiled seabirds on Kaua’i due to artificial lights. These lawsuits, among other things, ultimately helped pool together several million dollars in conservation efforts for Hawaiʻi’s only two endemic seabirds.

A Newell’s shearwater (ʻaʻo) chick was placed in its new home in the protected Nihoku area of the Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge on Kaua‘i. (Jen Waipa / USFWS)

A New Era in Seabird Conservation

Shearwaters and petrels aren’t easy animals for humans to protect. Both spend most of their time at sea, and, when they do come back to land to breed, they’re determined to return to their original nests, even if those nests are now vulnerable to predators or development. In addition, both birds have a low reproductive rate, only one egg per year, so every hatchling is especially precious. Finally, the remaining populations of Newell’s shearwaters and Hawaiian petrels exist in only a few specific locations throughout Hawaiʻi, which means that severe weather events like a hurricane, for example, could wipe out entire pockets of the population.

Conservationists knew that, in order to safeguard the imperiled birds, they needed to put their eggs in multiple, well-guarded baskets. Together, groups like Pacific Rim Conservation and American Bird Conservancy came up with a plan. They decided to implement protections for natural breeding colonies found in the Hono O Nā Pali Natural Area Reserve in Kaua‘i’s remote northwest, as well as establish new colonies at the Kīlauea Point National Wildlife Refuge on Kaua‘i’s North Shore. The latter, known as the Nihoku Ecosystem Restoration Project, would be the first (and so far only) fully protected colony of federally listed seabirds anywhere in the Hawaiian Islands.

“[Nihoku] was the start of a new era in seabird conservation,” says Lindsay Young, former Executive Director of Pacific Rim Conservation. “We created a new home for a species that desperately needs it.”

Over the years, the conservationists utilized funds from multiple sources, including those obtained through Earthjustice litigation, to create safe spaces for the birds by eradicating seabird predators from the protected areas and installing predator-proof fencing. They also purchased wildlife monitoring equipment like cameras and sound recorders to gain a better understanding of the birds’ behavior and health. Since translocation began at Nihoku in 2015, 192 listed seabirds have fledged (meaning the chicks have grown feathers and learned to fly) for a success rate of over 97% for the project. As the seabirds travel across the ocean, the work at Nihoku goes on. According to Young, the process to secure state and federal permits is already under way for another translocation project.

Earthjustice attorney David Henkin holds a Newell’s shearwater chick. (Earthjustice)

Moving the Fight to Maui

Following success on Kaua‘i, including the unveiling of the Kaua‘i Seabird Habitat Conservation Plan, Earthjustice’s fight to protect Hawaiʻi’s endemic seabirds has since expanded the battle to Maui County. For example, we’ve successfully challenged a decision by the county to install new LED streetlights, which threaten imperiled seabirds and sea turtles. Earthjustice has also filed two lawsuits against the Grand Wailea Resort on Maui, a luxury hotel, for failing to do everything it reasonably can to minimize the harm to Hawaiian petrels that the hotel’s bright lights inflict and to offset any unavoidable harm.

Most recently, Earthjustice warned Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO) and Maui County that they may face litigation over harm power lines and streetlights in the county cause to imperiled Hawaiian seabirds.

In addition to upholding the law, these legal suits are leading to new research that helps further understanding of how best to protect birds from human actions, and new findings about where the birds travel. (As far as the Philippines, a trek of over 5,000 miles.)

“These are amazing birds, and thanks to our work these researchers now have peer-reviewed data that they never had before,” says Henkin. “We’re helping to build a better understanding of these birds and the measures that are needed to help them survive.”