Photo: Carter Atkinson, USGS | Wikimedia
The wildfires on Maui came to the doorstep of a bird center that houses some of the world's rarest birds but all the birds are safe. Early Tuesday morning, when wildlife care supervisor Jennifer Pribble and a neighbor saw the fire, they grabbed fire extinguishers to put out the flames before they spread to barns with critically endangered birds and used a hose to douse the flames before firefighters arrived. Run by the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, the Maui Bird Conservation Center is home to critically endangered honeycreepers unique to the tropical islands, with melodic names like the palila, kiwikiu and 'akikiki. In the wild, the songbird species are succumbing to an avian form of malaria brought by invasive mosquitoes that are creeping up the islands' slopes as the climate warms. There are thought to be only five 'akikiki left in the wild. At the center, the birds are kept behind mosquito nets. The center also houses some of the last remaining 'alalā, or Hawaiian crows, now completely extinct in the wild.
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