HONOLULU – As the year comes to a close, American Forests has announced their new line of champion trees for the 2016 Big Tree registry. Five Hawai‘i trees stand among the 64 newly crowned champions across the nation. Participation from local communities has helped the Hawai‘i Big Tree program locate some of the biggest trees of various species. This now increases Hawai‘i’s Big Tree count to 12 champion trees from Hawai‘i, Molokaʻi, and O‘ahu.
Forestry & Wildlife
HONOLULU -- The Department of Land and Natural Resources, Division of Forestry and Wildlife (DOFAW) is seeking entries in an art contest to depict hunters during a hunt for game birds and mammals for its 2017-2018 Hawai‘i Wildlife Conservation and Game Bird Stamp. The conservation stamp is required on the Hawai‘i State hunting license, and the game bird hunting stamp is required for those intending to hunt game birds. Both stamps (differing slightly in text) will be available to wildlife stamp collectors.
Five young ‘Alalā—critically endangered Hawaiian crows—were released into Pu‘u Maka‘ala Natural Area Reserve on the Big Island of Hawai‘i on Dec, 14. The group of male birds took a few minutes to emerge from the aviary where they had been temporarily housed, and they appeared to show a natural curiosity for their surroundings.
(Kilauea Point, Kauai) – “An enormous success,” is how people and organizations involved in an effort to further protect endangered Hawaiian seabirds describe the first two seasons of translocating Hawaiian Petrels and the first Newell’s Shearwaters to a predator-proof enclosure at Kīlauea Point National Wildlife Refuge on Kaua‘i’s north shore.
HONOLULU -- The Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR), Division of Forestry and Wildlife (DOFAW) is the lead agency in developing and updating the Hawaiʻi Forest Action Plan 2016.
LIHU‘E, KAUA‘I -- Kaua‘i landowners are invited to attend a forestry workshop on Saturday December 10, 2016, starting at 9 a.m., to learn about how they can benefit from state and federal landowner assistance programs that support forest restoration efforts.
(Honolulu) - Lead scientists in the fight against Rapid ʻŌhiʻa Death on Hawaii’i Island joined Governor David Ige and other top policy makers for the first-ever Rapid ʻŌhiʻa Death Summit, today at the Hawaii’i State Capital Auditorium. Speakers provided situation reports on the disease and presented the recently completed, strategic response plan which will guide the statewide response to this dire threat to Hawaii’s most iconic tree species.
LIHU‘E -- The community is invited to attend an information meeting about the project now underway to construct a bridge for vehicles and pedestrians to cross over Keahua Stream. This location is at the end of Kuamo‘o Road, at the Keahua Arboretum in the Lihu‘e-Koloa State Forest Reserve. The meeting will take place on Tuesday, November 29 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at Kapa‘a Middle School, 4867 Olohena Rd.
HONOLULU -- State wildfire crews from the DLNR Division of Forestry and Wildlife today continued to combat for the fourth day a wildfire that started in the back of Wai‘anae valley and spread uphill into the Wai‘anae-Kai state forest reserve.
(Hamakua Coast, Hawai’i) - From the road, in the Laupahoehoe Section of the Hilo Forest Reserve, Steve Bergfeld of the Hawai’i Department of Land and Natural Resources spots the enormous, towering, ōhiʻa tree; its thick branches now completely without leaves. The Hawai’i Island Branch Manager for the DLNR Division of Forestry and Wildlife wants to get a close-up look at the tree, after a technician first spotted it and took samples a week ago. Two laboratory tests have confirmed that this very old tree was killed by the fast-moving fungal infection known as Rapid ʻŌhiʻa Death.