![]() ![]() While work continues developing the resources needed to implement mosquito management in forest bird habitat, effective implementation will likely come too late for the species at highest risk of extinction. ![]() Department of Interior and the State of Hawai‘i are working with partners in the " Birds, Not Mosquitoes" Working Group to develop and implement a plan for controlling invasive mosquitoes using a naturally occurring bacteria, Wolbachia, that prevents mosquitoes from reproducing. The immediate need for many of the forest birds to persist in the wild is landscape-scale control of the invasive mosquitoes. Learn more about climate change accelerates, mosquitoes are expanding their range into upper elevation forests, threatening what little safe habitat these birds have left. Though there have been previous periods of climatic change, since the mid-20th century humans have had an unprecedented impact on Earth's climate system and caused change on a global scale. As climate change climate changeĬlimate change includes both global warming driven by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases and the resulting large-scale shifts in weather patterns. A few species, like the kiwikiu (Maui parrotbill) and ‘akikiki (Kauaʻi honeycreeper), have less than 200 individuals remaining in the wild and could go extinct in as little as two years. Once, there were more than 50 species of honeycreepers spread throughout the islands however, today only 17 species remain, most of which are restricted to small area habitats too cold for mosquitoes to thrive. Avian malaria, a disease transmitted by invasive mosquitoes, is driving the extinction of Hawai‘i's forest birds and for some species a single bite from an infected mosquito can be deadly. Hawai‘i's endemic forest birds are facing an immediate extinction crisis.
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