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Rare Oahu elepaio
wins habitat ruling

By Debra Barayuga
Star-Bulletin

The Secretary of the Interior and the head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must designate critical habitat for the Oahu elepaio by Oct. 31, 2001, a U.S. District Court judge has ruled.

Judge Helen Gillmor yesterday rejected the federal agencies' request to delay designation until October 2004.

The ruling brings to a close a lawsuit filed in January by the the Conservation Council for Hawaii asking that the agencies finalize a proposed rule listing the native forest bird as an endangered species and designating a critical habitat.

"We're pleased that the court recognized the need to hold the service's feet to the fire on this one," said David Henkin, attorney for Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, in a written statement. Earthjustice had filed suit on behalf of the Conservation Council.

Under the Endangered Species Act, the Wildlife Service has one year to formalize the proposed rule. The agency published a proposed rule in October 1998 to list the elepaio, but did not finalize it until after the Council sued.

The elepaio finally made the federal endangered species list in April, but the Wildlife Service has yet to designate critical habitat.

Only an estimated 1,500 of the native birds remain. Its decline is attributed to the loss and degradation of its habitat.

Their survival has been increasingly threatened by highway construction, suburban and golf course development, and military activities in Leeward and Central Oahu, according to Earthjustice.

"Designating critical habitat will force federal agencies like the Army and the Department of Transportation to take a hard look at activities they fund, approve and carry out ... to make sure that they won't destroy habitat that the Oahu elepaio needs for recovery," Henkin said.

The Oahu elepaio formerly inhabited 75 percent of the island's land mass. By 1990, the bird occupied an area of 80 square miles, less than 8 percent of its original habitat.

An estimated 200 to 500 Oahu elepaio remain.