Endangered Hawaiian Hawk may be De-Listed

[Mitzi M]

The 'Io, or Hawaiian Hawk is currently listed as an endangered species with an estimated population of around 3,000. But now USFWS wants to de-list the 'Io and remove it's endangered species status and protections. USFWS beleives that the 'Io's numbers are now sufficient to insure its survival.

The hawk is one of only 2 native raptors, the other being the Pueo, or Hawaiian Owl. The 'Io previously lived on other islands but has become extinct on all but the Big Island. It lives and nests in older forests and can be found over most of Puna.

It's hard to fathom what the hurry may be to de-list so many species in recent years when the rate of extinction is rising ever faster. Perhaps they are inconvenient to the path of "progress".

I wholehartedly oppose removing the 'Io from the endangered species list and I hope you do too. As many have discussed in the Puna CDP forum, there are 40,000 lots out there that someone, someday is probably going to develop. When that happens we will lose a lot of prime 'Io habiat. When you consider that they once lived on all the major islands and now live only here, the number 3,000 sounds even less like anything that could be called "secure".

USFWS will take public comment on the de-listing proposal for 2 months, ending Oct. 6th. Please take a moment to help protect the graceful 'Io. You can send comments to:

http://www.regulations.gov

You can find more about this where I first read about it on Jan Tenbruggencate's blog:

http://raisingislands.blogspot.com/

Aloha,
Mitzi