A $10,000 grant from the Bill Healy Foundation to the Hawaii Forest Institute will help to restore two additional acres of native forest habitat, provide fruit and perching limbs for birds in captivity and provide an estimated 400 youth with a place-based learning experience at the San Diego Zoo Global’s Keauhou Bird Conservation Center Discovery Forest. An additional 1,200 native seedlings will be outplanted, which will benefit Hawaiian birds in captivity and in the wild.
“This unique project is combining native forest restoration with captive propagation and release techniques to reestablish self-sustaining populations of critically endangered Hawaiian birds in the wild,” said Hawaii Forest Institute executive director Heather Simmons.
Understory fruiting species will be planted in the area once a koa forest has been re-established. The native fruiting species that are key to the diets of the rare Hawaiian bird species include ohelo, naio and hapuu. The endangered birds alala, kiwikiu, puaiohi and palila in the Keauhou Bird Conservation Center Discovery Forest’s captive breeding and release program will benefit along with the native wild birds at the site, including amakihi, apapane, and iiwi.
“It is vitally important that we preserve and restore the unique bird species found only here in Hawaii for future generations,” said conservation program manager Bryce Masuda.
The Discovery Forest is a native forest restoration and education project initiated in 2014 on approximately 200 acres of land. To date, 120 community volunteers have outplanted 856 acacia, koa and mamane seedlings on 1.8 acres.
The land is owned by Kamehameha Schools and is licensed to San Diego Zoo Global, which operates Keauhou Bird Conservation Center as part of the Hawaii Endangered Bird Conservation Program.
For more information on the Keauhou Bird Conservation Center Discovery Forest, visit hawaiiforestinstitute.org, or contact Simmons at 933-9411 or hfia@hawaiiforest.org.