In July 2009 Eric submitted a proposal to the American Ornithologists’ Union checklist committee recommending that the Elepaio be split into 3 species, one each on Kauai, Oahu, and Hawaii. This recommendation was based on research that showed Elepaio on each island differ morphologically, genetically, and behaviorally. Copies of these research papers can be downloaded from the publications page of the Pacific Rim Conservation website (pdf #s 65 and 52).
The AOU has voted to accept this proposal, and the split will become official in July 2010. The official checklist can be viewed and searched on the AOU website: http://www.aou.org/checklist/north/ This change will give birders two more species to tick on their lists, but much more importantly, it will more accurately represent the evolutionary ecology of Elepaio, facilitate individual assessment of their conservation status on each island, and hopefully help create more support for conservation of the many endemic species in Hawaii. The Oahu Elepaio is already listed as an endangered subspecies under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, but this change in taxonomy should increase its recovery priority. Under the IUCN system, the Oahu Elepaio will likely qualify as critically endangered due to its small population size and rapid decline.
As part of the ongoing monitoring to measure what the effects will be of predator removal on the ecosystem at Kaena Point Natural Area Reserve, Pacific Rim Conservation in collaboration with the Hawaii Department of
Yellow faced bee on an Ohai flower. Photo by Pat Aldrich
Land and Natural Resources and the US Fish and Wildlife Service Coastal Program, conducted an intensive three day long biological survey in March as part of the Kaena Point Ecosystem Restoration Project. Insects were collected and identified from points throughout the reserve to document whether the removal of rats will cause changes in proportions of native insects, such as yellow faced bees, and non-native insects, such as ants. Small soil samples were also collected to determine whether increases in seabird numbers will impact the nutrients in the soils and the marine intertidal habitat was surveyed to document whether rats are having an impact on marine invertebrates, such as opihi. Previous surveys have already been done on the plants and birds at Kaena to look at similar questions. Overall, the removal of non-native predators, such as rats, mongoose and cats are expected to have a large benefit to the native species found at Kaena Point.
The recent paper by Lindsay and her co-authors on the foraging patterns and plastic ingestion rates of Laysan albatross on Oahu and Kure Atoll (pdf 67) was written up by multiple media outlets including the Discovery Channel (http://news.discovery.com/animals/albatross-plastic-garbage-patch.html), scientific American (http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=plastic-plastic-everywhere-nor-any-2009-10-27) and a radio interview on national public radio (http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/archives/09-10/qq-2009-11-07.html). We found that by following birds at sea with miniaturized tracking devices and analyzing their stomach contents, that birds from Kure Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands ingested ten times the amount of plastic compared to birds on Oahu, primarily because birds from Kure spent more time over Asian waters which contained more plastic.
June 23, 2010 
