Birds of the Hawaiian and other Pacific
Islands
These downloadable files are lists of
the species occurring on the Hawaiian Islands and other Pacific Islands over
which the United States (thus the Fish and Wildlife Service – FWS) has
some jurisdiction. The FWS included these species in the Birds
of Conservation Concern 2002 (BCC 2002) for the first time in this
edition. The lists attempt to be comprehensive for the islands; species of
conservation concern appear in blue print on the downloadable lists (below),
while threatened and endangered species appear in red. The FWS consulted
experts within and outside the agency regarding the status of these species
in order to assign them ranking factor scores, using the same methods and
designations used by
Partners in Flight, and the waterbird
and shorebird
initiatives, and as described in the BCC 2002. In brief, the ranking factors
are PS = Population Size; BD = Breeding distribution; ND = Nonbreeding
distribution; TN = Threats to nonbreeding population; TB = Threats to
breeding population; AI = Area importance, i.e. the significance of local
population to overall population within the scope of the plans. Factors
range from 1 (least concern) to 5 (greatest concern). Species with AI = 1 or
2 are not scored - insufficient evidence to assess risk and/or low relative
abundance in region. Some nonbreeding seabirds, especially gulls and terns,
roost on the islands. In these instances, where birds are recorded on land
the AI is recorded to reflect the magnitude of this occurrence; others are
encountered at sea only; these are given an AI = O (Oceanic).
The Conservation Category (CC in the
tables) are based on the North American Waterbird Conservation Plan, United
States Shorebird Conservation Plan, and Partners in Flight categories for
prioritizing species of concern: HI = Highly imperiled; HC = High concern;
MC = Moderate concern; LC = Low concern; NCR = Not currently at risk; T1 =
Tier 1 species (Partners in Flight - PIF- ranking if sum of ranking factors
is > 21, the highest category of concern).
BCRs 67 and 68
‘BCRs’ are
Bird Conservation Regions, land areas of more or less uniform
habitat adopted by the major bird conservation initiatives as the common
area unit in which to focus bird conservation efforts and track populations.
The USFWS Pacific Region named two new BCRs for this effort: 67 (Hawaiian
Islands) and 68 (other U.S. Pacific Islands). The area encompassed by BCR 67
includes all the islands in the Hawaiian archipelago from hawaii to Kure
Atoll. BCR 68 includes the following "territories" and other
affiliations of the United States: Howland, Baker, and Jarvis islands,
Johnston Atoll, Palmyra Atoll, and Kingman Reef all
administered by the USFWS as National Wildlife Refuges; Wake Island; American
Samoa; Guam; and Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands.
The political relationships of these islands to the United States are
defined here.
Birds of
Hawaii - BCR 67
Birds of the
U.S. Pacific Islands - BCR 68
