Fish and Wildlife Service, by 1950, only 30 nēnē remained in the wild. The same story puts the number at 3,862 statewide in its 2022 annual survey.
According to a feature story from the U.S. Most of us would probably walk past a goose without a second glance. But one goose in Hawaii went from thousands to the brink of extinction and back to thousands again. The state bird of Hawaii is the nēnē. So what went wrong, and how did people turn it around?
The nēnē population was estimated to be 3,252 in 2019, and the species was downlisted from endangered to threatened under the Endangered Species Act, the feature story said. The press release credits 60 years of collaboration between federal, state, nonprofit, and local partners, along with captive breeding, habitat restoration, and active management. A 2022 survey estimated there were 3,862 nēnē statewide, including 2,430 on Kauai.
Some protections were removed with the downlisting, but conservation work continues, and Kīlauea Point National Wildlife Refuge is leading several efforts.
All three descended from Canada goose ancestors that arrived in Hawaii about 500,000 years ago. The giant nēnē is little known, with fossils found in 1926 under a lava flow from prehistoric times in Hawaii. In 1967, the nēnē was listed as endangered on the first-ever federal list of protected species, which gave it federal protection, the press release notes. Between 1960 and 1997, over 2,000 nēnē were released on Hawaii Island and Maui. Across all the main Hawaiian Islands, nearly 3,000 captive-bred nēnē were released at more than 20 sites in the decades after the 1967 listing. Twelve captive-reared birds were released at Kīlauea Point National Wildlife Refuge in 1991, and reintroduction efforts continued through 2000. With no established mongoose population, the birds thrived, and by 2012, Kauai was home to an estimated 60% of the state’s nēnē.
Because there was no known history of the birds nesting there, scientists at first held off on reintroducing nēnē to Kauai. Results were mixed, with many of the newly released birds and their offspring being killed by introduced predators, especially mongooses.
The feature story says captive breeding programs are based on private collections in Europe, Hawaii, and the mainland U.S. Before Polynesians settled Hawaii more than a thousand years ago, three goose species flourished there: the nēnē, the nēnē nui, and the giant nēnē. People stepped in. Then research at Makauwahi Cave Reserve on the island’s south shore turned up nēnē bones buried deep, providing planners with the evidence they needed.
It was about twice as big as today’s nēnē.
