Environment

The Laysan duck (below) and 30 other of the world's rarest bird species face extinction for one simple reason: the US doesn't care enough about them to come to their rescue.

The problem is that the birds live on the Hawaiian archipelago, far from the minds of most US politicians and citizens, says David Leonard of the Division of Forestry and Wildlife in Honolulu, who has surveyed how much the country spends on recovery programmes for endangered birds.

Between 1996 and 2004, the US spent $750 million to conserve its birds, he found. Yet despite the fact that Hawaii is home to 31 per cent of the nation's 95 endangered bird species, just 4 per cent of the cash - $30 million - was spent there.

For example, fewer than 500 Maui parrotbills survive, yet the federal government spends just $100,000 a year trying to save them. In contrast, it spends $1.25 million a year trying to rescue the red-cockaded woodpecker on the mainland, of which up to 15,000 survive (Biological Conservation, DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2008.06.001).

Hawaii cannot raise enough money or political clout to save its own birds, says Leonard, so it's left to the mainlanders to step up. If they don't, many species now perched on the brink face an unquestionably bleak future, he says. Twenty-three Hawaiian bird species have already gone extinct since the arrival of Europeans in 1778, and the populations of 17 more have dwindled to fewer than 1000 individuals.

Endangered species - Learn more about the conservation battle in our comprehensive special report.

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