Samuel Clemens, perhaps better known by the pen name of Mark Twain, once described Hawai’i as the “loveliest fleet of islands ever anchored in any ocean.” I concur in his judgement and recognize how fortunate I am to call this place home. But even paradise has its problems, and that is certainly true of our 50th state. In late September, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released a list of 23 species that were once rare and are now officially classified as extinct — and nine of them, more than a third of the total — were part of Hawai’i’s flora and fauna.
The Hawaiian Islands make up the oldest and longest archipelago on the planet. They have been birthed by volcanic eruptions over one of the 25 “hot spots” that dot the Earth. Because this hot spot is located under the Pacific Tectonic Plate, which moves northwest about three to four inches each year, the first islands to be formed — some 70 million years ago — have moved 3,000 miles and sunk beneath the surface of the ocean. Ultimately, they will disappear into the Aleutian Trench.
But all of that is in the distant future. At present, the greater concern is the rapid disappearance of the unique plants and animals that evolved on these beautiful but remote isles. When Polynesians discovered and settled Hawai’i, some 1,200 years ago, the islands were covered with vegetation and boasted a variety of birds found nowhere else on…
