PACIFIC ISLANDS

PROTECTING HABITAT FOR PACIFIC ISLANDS ENDANGERED SPECIES

Since 2000, the Center has worked to gain Endangered Species Act protections for imperiled species that inhabit the Pacific Islands, including endangered birds, bats, butterflies, snails, and plants. Through petitions and lawsuits, we’ve secured listing and critical habitat designation for over two dozen rare species from Guam, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands.

PROTECTING RARE SOUTH PACIFIC BIRDS

The Center has been working to secure Endangered Species Act protection for more than 50 of the world’s rarest bird species, including seven South Pacific birds that occur on the Marquesas Islands, Solomon Islands, Fiji, New Caledonia, and New South Wales. Although ornithologists first petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect these species in 1980 and 1991, the Service has delayed protecting them for more than two decades. To compel listing of the birds, we filed a lawsuit in 2006, and the Service has so far proposed to list Fiji’s long-legged thicketbird and Fiji petrel. Learn more about our International Birds Initiative.

PROTECTING MIGRATORY BIRDS FROM MILITARY ACTIVITY

In 2002, the Center sued the U.S. Navy to halt illegal killing of migratory birds at Farallon de Medinilla in the Northern Mariana Islands , home to more than a dozen migratory bird species. The military had been using the island for live-fire training, during which bombers dropped mines and bombs and fired high-explosive rounds, machine guns, cannons, and missiles in bird habitat. A court halted the bombing when it ruled that the resulting destruction of nesting migratory birds violated the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.