Endangered Bird Poised To Get Hundreds Of Thousands Of Protected Acres In Hawaii 1 Conservationists took the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to court last year to spur action that was overdue for the imperiled native honeycreeper.
Federal wildlife officials have proposed that more than 275,000 acres of forest across Hawaii be designated critical habitat for the ‘i‘iwi bird, one of about a dozen native honeycreeper species currently headed toward extinction.
Conservationists with the Center for Biological Diversity heralded the long-awaited move by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as key to saving the ‘i‘iwi. The nonprofit had sued the federal agency last year to propose a habitat as required by law for the bird, which is listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
That lawsuit led to a deal in which the Fish and Wildlife Service would propose a critical habitat by December 2022. The ‘i‘iwi was listed as threatened in 2017, according to the suit.
