Pacific Division Meeting Probes Threats to Hawaiian Paradise

摘要

From their research station high on the forested slopes of Mauna Kea, Rebecca Cann and Leonard Freed have watched with alarm in recent years as a beautiful orange bird called the akepa has plunged toward extinction in their study site. They have seen females begging for food until their voices faded to silence, and young and old birds die en masse. At the recent annual meeting of the AAAS Pacific Division, researchers described the collapse of the akepa as just one of many ominous signs for the Hawaiian paradise. Native birds are threatened by introduced predators and diseases. Land snails with exquisite shells have suffered from deforestation and shell-collectors. Sea turtles are injured and killed by fishing crews. Brackish coastal ponds that are home to rare flora and fauna have been undermined by an invasion of normative fish. "The serious problems of environmental stress and degradation are not unique to Hawaii-they're being felt to varying degrees on most islands and many coastal areas in the Pacific Basin," said the division's executive director, Roger Christianson, a biologist at Southern Oregon University. "The meeting provided researchers and educators across a wide array of disciplines an important forum in which to discuss their efforts to study and, hopefully, protect these treasures before they disappear."