Hawaii Forest Bird Interagency Database Project: Collecting, Understanding, and Sharing Population Data on Hawaiian Forest Birds

Abstract

The forest birds of the Hawaiian Islands are distinguished by the diversity of endemic forms derived from a small number of ancestral colonists. However, the avifauna has been decimated by human activities both before and after Western contact. At least 71 species or subspecies disappeared before the arrival of Capt. James Cook in 1778, and an additional 24 went extinct after 1778, of which 11 were lost since the 1960s alone. Many of the remaining Hawaiian bird populations are declining or are in danger of extinction. Vigorous efforts to survey and monitor bird populations over the past 3 decades have generated considerable information from which to assess the current status of the Hawaiian forest birds.