Managing Non-native Game Mammals to Reduce Future Conflicts with Native Plant Conservation in Hawai‘i

Principal Investigator

Lucas Fortini

Start Date

2019-01-01

End Date

2023-06-30

Release Date

2018

Landscape-scale conservation and recovery of threatened and endangered species must accommodate multiple, sometimes conflicting land uses. Across the state of Hawai‘i, for example, management of non-native game mammals for hunting poses a challenge to native forest conservation land uses. Maintenance of “sustained yield” non-native mammals by definition requires a stable or increasing game population leading to perhaps the greatest obstacle to the landscape-scale recovery of threatened and endangered Hawaiian plant species of forest ecosystems. Many endemic Hawaiian species have declined and become endangered as a direct or indirect result of herbivorous non-native game mammals. The adverse ecological effects of non-native game mammals on native ecosystems in the Hawaiian Islands have been well-documented in more than 58 studies (Leopold and Hess 2017). Combined with inherent changes to Hawai‘i’s native biodiversity from non-native mammals, environmental conditions are changing rapidly through the interactions of rainfall, cyclical El Niño/La Niña climate events (Wang et al. 2017), invasive species spread including pyrogenic grasses (D’Antonio and Vitousek 1992), and changing wildfire regimes (Prichard et al. 2017). These factors are expected to result in distribution changes and range contraction of important native forest species. To support the cultural and conservation goals of landscape-scale native species recovery and game hunting, sufficient habitat in appropriate eco-regions are needed to ensure viable populations of native plant species especially vulnerable to extinction from non-native game animals and changing climatic conditions.

ScienceBase WMS

• National and Regional Climate Adaptation Science Centers
• Pacific Islands CASC