Conservation group
files lawsuit to protect
Hawaiian forest bird

By Debra Barayuga
Star-Bulletin

A nonprofit conservation group with more than 800 Hawaii members is suing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to add the Oahu elepaio to the list of endangered species.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court yesterday comes two months after the Conservation Council for Hawaii warned U.S. Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbit and Jamie Rappaport Clark, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, that it would sue if a proposed rule listing the Hawaiian forest bird as an endangered species and designating its critical habitat was not finalized.

Under the Endangered Species Act, the service has one year to formalize proposed rules. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published a proposed rule to list the Oahu elepaio in October 1998, but more than a year later has yet to finalize it.

The Endangered Species Act calls for the proposed rules to be listed, withdrawn or notice given to extend the one-year period by not more than six months. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have done nothing, the council says.

The service's actions unlawfully deprives the endangered forest bird of legal protections vital to its survival and recovery, the group charges.

"The only way to reverse the Oahu elepaio's precipitous slide toward extinction is to force the service to comply promptly with the ESA's mandatory deadlines," said attorney David Henkin with the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund. "Only then will this unique Hawaiian forest bird finally benefit from the significant protections that come with being listed as endangered."

The council asks for a declaratory judgment and injunctive relief, compelling the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to finalize the proposed rule and designate its critical habitat.

The Oahu elepaio is unique to the island, formerly inhabiting 75 percent of the island's land mass. Naturalists in the early 1900s called the elepaio "the one indigenous forest bird that appears to successfully withstand the devastating influences of civilization."

But by 1990, Oahu elepaio occupied an area of 80 square miles, less than 8 percent of its original habitat. It is estimated that only about 200 to 500 Oahu elepaio remain.

The Oahu elepaio's decline can be attributed to the loss of its habitat and degradation. Construction of the H-3 freeway, for example, disturbed Halawa Valley, which was home to one of only six remaining elepaio populations. Live-fire training at Schofield Barracks and Makua Military Reservation also have resulted in fires that threaten the bird's habitat.

Once the elepaio is formally listed, federal and state laws would prohibit the bird from being harmed or harassed or its habitat modified.