Editorial

Fatal Compromises at Hakalau Refuge

Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge is a terrific place. It embraces thirty-three thousand acres, including large tracts of some of the best native rainforest in Hawai’i today. The rarest birds that call Hakalau home include species found nowhere else on Earth – and many of them are in numbers low enough to be considered perilously close to extinction.

Why, then, should Hakalau not be protected in the best way possible?

The answer, as with so many other problems in Hawai’i, may be traced to politics. Hawai’i’s Congressional delegation can take credit reestablishing Hakalau. It is, after all, thanks to an act of Congress that the refuge was established, for the benefit of the nation. But our delegates to Washington can also be blamed for meddling so much in the refuge’s internal management decisions that the refuge now seems to be run for the benefit of pig hunters rather than birds.

For reasons that will probably forever remain obscure (but surely have to do with the state’s Democratic machine), the former sugar workers on the Hamakua Coast and the union that represented them – the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union – have found Hawai’i’s representatives in Washington as well as their own delegation to the state Capitol eager to champion their misguided cause and lobby the Fish and Wildlife Service to implement a management program that would allow for “sustained yield” of pigs.

It is perhaps a tribute to Hakalau’s management that it has not yielded more than it has to the hunters’ claims. Still, with so much at stake, there is little room for compromise.

Even one pig in a forest can wreak havoc. If the refuge is to be managed for the sake of the birds and the native plants that make up the birds’ habitat, the pigs must go.

Hunters may claim that pigs are part of a healthy forest; there is not a scintilla of scientific evidence to back them up on this.

Hunters may assert native Hawaiian rights to pigs. Let them hunt pigs elsewhere in the island, including the state lands that border Hakalau.

In short, if Hakalau refuge is to be a place for birds, aggressive management is required to eradicate pigs throughout the refuge without delay. Absent this, it is a virtual certainty that over time – and not a long time at that – the native birds will be lost.

Not that pig eradication is itself sufficient to guarantee the birds’ long-term success. Many other problems remain: rats, disease, dwindling numbers of some bird populations, shrinking habitat, competition with alien species, and the like.

But removal of the pigs is an essential first step to ensuring that Hakalau will remain a place of many perches.

Can public hunting accomplish this? No, it cannot.

What the State Should Do

The state-owned Piha tract cuts through the heart of Hakalau. Because this is a designated game management area, the work of the refuge managers is made doubly difficult. Instead of having just one border to defend against the incursions of pigs, the refuge has two. That means double the effort, double the expense, and more than double the risk of a fence failing.

While the federal government has been able to purchase all of the private lands encompassed in the refuge boundary, by law it may not purchase the state’s land. If the state is serious about wanting to protect its rarest native species of birds and plants, it should fence the Piha tract, remove the pigs, and work with the Fish and Wildlife Service on a comprehensive restoration and management program.

To accomplish this politically, it may be necessary that the state assure hunters adequate access to other state lands. Still, so long as the Piha tract is managed in a fashion that is absolutely contrary to the management goals of the refuge, the state can only be seen as working at cross-purposes to the refuge. This not only results in more taxpayer money being spent to manage the refuge, but it also diminishes the long term chance that the refuge will succeed in its mission.

If Mike Wilson, head of the Department of Land and Natural Resources, and Mike Buck, chief of the DLNR’s Division of Forestry and Wildlife, are sincere in their expressions of desire to protect Hawai’i’s most precious natural resources, there is no better signal they could send than closure of the Piha tract to hunting.

To Our Friends, Mahalo!

We wish to thank the following for recent generous contributions: Larry Abbott and Donna Lum; Isabella Abbott; Robert Akamine, Noa Emmett Aluli, Diane Amuro; Eve Anderson, Adam Asquith; Ben Bagdikian, Les and Sandy Bailey; Nancy Bannick; Pat Beer; Juliet Begley; Susan Bendon; Roxie Berlin; Lauren Bjorkman; Susan Blumstein; Chris Bouslog; Kent W. Bridges; Harold Bronstein;

David Caccia; Barbara Campbell; Kimo Campbell; Traver Carroll; Hampton and Meredith Carson; John Cater; Helen Chapin; Henry Clark; Doak Cox; Annette Dale; Gavin Daws; Geraldine DeBenedetti; Frances Delany; Richard Denison; William Devick; E.E. Dixon; Kathy Dorn; Dorothy Doudna; Kay and Leo Drey; Diane Faye; Andrew Fisher; James Frierson; Murray Gardner; Renate Gassmann-Duvall;

Thomas P. Gill; Emily and Geno Godinet; Bonnie Goodell; Susan Graham; James and Priscilla Growney; Mike Hadfield; David Hagino; Dana and Issac Hall; Mike Hamnett; Bob Hampton; Martha Harden; Derral Herbst; Folly Hofer; Lea Hong; George Hudes; Susan Irvine; Virginia Isbell; Lenore Johnson; Clarence Kauahi; John Kawamoto; Po’omai Kawananakoa; Debby Kermode; Annie Kim; George Kinder; Celeste King; Harvey and Mary King; Mary Lou Kobayashi; Jeanette Koijane and Marcus Faigle; Gerry Kosasa-Terry; Ken and Patty Kupchak;

Rebecca Laing; Doug Lamerson; John Lander and Punipau; Henry Lawrence; James Leavitt Jr.; Kathee LeBuse; Reese Liggett; Ian Lind and Meda Chesney-Lind; Kem Lowry; Amy Luersen; Arnold Lum and June Harrigan;

Collette Machado; Ron McComber; Lynn McCrory; Teresa McHugh; John McLaren; Dr. and Mrs. T.M. McMillan; Doug and Chris Meller; Lola Mench; Steve Miller and Mabel Trafford; Karen Miyano; Debra Miyashiro; Robert Moncrief; Ka’ohu Monfort; Marie Morin; Justus Muller;

Steve Olive; Vladimir Ossipoff; Sona Pai; William Paty; John M. Perry; Fern Pietsch; Richard Poirier; E.F. Porter; Peter J. Rappa; Sally Rice; Barbara Robeson; Sarah Robinson; Louis Rose; Jay Scharf, Diane Shepherd; Glenn Shepherd; Marilyn Simpson; Joseph Singer; Ann Snyder; Vicki Tsuhako;

Phyllis Turnbull; Rick Warshauer; Dr. and Mrs. C.A. Weber; Patti Wilton; Frederick Wichman; Carol Wilcox; Robert Williams; Jim and Doris Williamson; Alan Young; Alan Ziegler; and Marjorie Ziegler.

Volume 8, Number 4 October 1997