Honolulu Star-Advertiser © Susan Scott
January 5, 2019
I often lament that between work, travel and life maintenance, I don’t have time to enjoy Hawaii. I love my adopted home state of 36 years, but even so, driving around Oahu can be a challenge and interisland trips are costly.During this recent holiday season, though, we invited several friends and family members to stay with us. And when you have guests there are no excuses.
The most challenging thing we did was hike 36 miles into, across and out of Haleakala Crater over four days, staying in the crater’s three park cabins reserved by Honolulu friends.
I didn’t expect to see any marine or wetland animals in this desert landscape — but nature surprised me. Inside the crater I got to spend hours watching a species of waterfowl that evolved to live far from water. That would be our lovely, endemic Hawaiian goose, commonly known as nene (pronounced nay-nay).
A pair of nene graze near Craig’s duct-taped boots
at Haleakala National Park’s Holua cabin.
©2019 Susan Scott
The nene is the last of at least five species of geese that were once native to Hawaii, all likely evolved from Canada geese. At one time it was touch-and-go for our charming little goose. In 1951 only 30 individuals were left here, due to hunting and predators in the form of dogs, cats, pigs, rats and mongooses.
Fortunately, nene reproduce well in confinement, a trait that saved the species through various captive breeding programs, including some in England. That country got its first nene in 1823 (apparently the geese ride well in ships, too). English birders successfully bred the nene and distributed their offspring to zoos and private collections throughout Europe.
Today over 2,800 nene live in Hawaii, enough that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed downgrading the nene’s status from endangered to threatened.
The nene is Hawaii’s official state bird. Outside of the Honolulu Zoo, we Oahu residents don’t often see nene because the geese live in the wild on Kauai, Maui, Molokai and the Big Island.
Like our albatrosses, nene mate for life. And they fly just fine. In 2018 a pair flew to James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge near Kahuku and raised three youngsters there.
Several nene have taken up residence at each of Haleakala’s three cabins, and because people often stay there, the famous geese are quite tolerant of humans. I was privileged to witness a pair of nene mating, and we saw two sets of chicks foraging around the cabins’ lush grass with their parents. (Female nene lay two to five eggs.) The geese eat leaves, seeds, berries and the flowers of grass and shrubs.
After three hectic weeks of visiting Maui, Hanauma Bay, Pearl Harbor and more, I’m resting. Come February, though, Craig’s family arrives, a surefire way to get me off the couch to experience more of this place that I’m lucky to call home.