The Disappearing Songs of Hawaii's Endangered Native Birds
New research finds that different species of honeycreepers are singing the same songs. What does that mean for survival?
DANIELLE BEURTEAUX
This piece was originally published in Undark and appears here as part of our Climate Desk Partnership.
The sounds of Kauai’s forests are changing. Thirty years ago, David Kuhn could hear a dawn chorus and identify the many different birds that lived on the Hawaiian island. But more recently, Kuhn, a wildlife recordist based on Kauai, began noticing that not only are the forests becoming quieter, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to tell the remaining birds apart by their songs.
Investigating further, in 2014 he recorded a native honeycreeper, an akekee, singing the songs of other endangered honeycreeper species. “That confirmed my confusion up to that point,” says Kuhn. “I thought, what the heck, these guys are starting to sound alike.”
Kuhn’s discovery prompted research into the plight of three of Kauai’s six remaining honeycreeper species: the anianiau, the Kauai amakihi, and the akekee. His hunch was correct—the three species now sing much more similar songs, with less complex vocal signals, due to the decreasing size of their populations, especially among mature birds that pass on song repertoires to younger offspring. It’s the first time this type of behavior among endangered birds has been recorded, says Kristina Paxton, lead author of a paper on honeycreepers published last year in the journal Royal Society Open Science, and a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Biology at the University of Hawaii at Hilo.
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2020/02/the-disappearing-songs-of-hawaiis-endangered-native-birds/
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