Another Native Kauai Plant Is Now Considered ‘Extinct In The Wild’ 0 A team of biologists is now trying to breed ‘alula so they can reintroduce the plant before it’s too late.
KALAHEO, Kauai – An endangered Kauai plant has not been seen in nature for the past decade, but a local biologist is trying to brighten its future through a breeding program borrowed from zoos.
‘Alula, also known as ‘olulu or “cabbage on a stick,” is endemic to Kauai and the neighboring island of Niihau. Several wild populations have been documented on Kauai, but the last known specimen died on the island’s Na Pali Coast sometime after 2012.
Seana Walsh, a conservation biologist at the National Tropical Botanical Garden headquartered on the South Shore, said NTBG personnel hunted for the isolated specimen in 2020 but didn’t find it after multiple drone surveys of where it was last seen.
Now, she is getting ready to change the ‘alula’s status from “critically endangered” to “extinct in the wild” on the IUCN Red List, a resource that assesses the extinction risk status of animal, fungus and plant species throughout the world. But ‘alula’s change in Red List status, which will take effect by the end of the year, is not the final nail in the species’ coffin.
