‘They don’t all get happy endings’

A Kailua-Kona veterinarian who has treated ill and injured wild birds for two decades said she’s seen an increase in recent years of cases in which native birds were shot by air-powered pellet rifles.

“They are coming in from all over the island, and they’re coming in greater numbers than they used to come in a decade ago,” Dr. Shannon Nakaya told the Tribune-Herald on Monday. “I’ve seen 40% to 50% of the cases where I have to pull pellets out in the past few years. Which is just horrifying.

“Humans are causing those problems.”

Nakaya said a Hawaiian hawk, or ‘io, was brought to her on Sept. 16 with a shattered wing. The bird, which is considered endangered by the state, had been shot by an air rifle, and pellet fragments remained in the damaged wing, rendering it unable to fly or hunt.

“The bird was euthanized, because there was no way that I was going to be able to put it back together well enough for that bird to be released,” she said.

“People like happy endings. But the reality is, they don’t all get happy endings.”

Population of the ‘io, a medium-sized bird of prey endemic to the Hawaiian Islands, is estimated at about 3,000. According to the American Bird Conservancy, they breed only on the Island of Hawaii.

Raymond McGuire, a wildlife biologist for the state Department of Land and Natural Resources Division of Forestry and Wildlife, said a good Samaritan brought the injured bird to his Hilo office.

“It happened after a storm, so we weren’t sure what actually happened to it. But it looked injured and thin,” McGuire said. “I decided to bring it to Steve Snyder, one of the raptor rehabbers on the island, to have it checked out.”

Snyder, in turn, took the injured creature to Nakaya.

“It’s not the first one, and that’s my concern,” Nakaya said. “I have been removing more and more air rifle pellets from injured birds and dead bodies in recent years.

“I’ve removed pellets from a hawk with a shattered leg, a nene, and two owls. All of these birds had severe injuries. Not all of them made it back to the wild. I’m sure that for every injured bird that did make it to me, there are others that died injured, frightened and in pain.”

Nakaya doesn’t know how widespread the shootings of native birds are, but fears what she sees is merely the tip of a deadly iceberg.

“I’m just one of several veterinarians who treat wildlife on the island. And, honestly, most of us are so busy that we don’t have time to sit down together and compare notes,” she explained. “So, I can’t tell you how many of these wildlife cases others are seeing, nor can I tell you how many of these birds just crawl off and die without anybody being the wiser.

“I just know that I’ve been doing wildlife cases for almost 20 years, and we never used to see air rifle injuries.”

McGuire emphasized although the ‘io has been de-listed from the federal Endangered Species Act, it still has legal protections that prohibit shooting or otherwise harming the bird.

“There seems to have been an uptick in incidents where hawks have been shot since they were de-listed,” he said. “The (Hawaii) Wildlife Center also gets these hawks, and they also have found pellets in the X-rays. It seems that in the past few years, it’s become more prevalent.

“A trend that I’ve seen is that the injuries usually happen near chicken farms.”

According to McGuire, ‘io do predate chickens.

Air-powered pellet rifles are not legally firearms, and anyone can obtain one. And while it remains illegal to shoot protected wildlife, even with a pellet gun, it is rare that wildlife law-enforcers are able to collect the evidence necessary to prosecute these cases.

“It’s very hard to get convictions on these cases, because you don’t see the people actually doing it,” Nakaya said. “It’s been happening more and more, and I don’t know why. I think it’s because people don’t realize how devastatingly powerful and how accurate those weapons can be. I think most people don’t know that something like this is going on, but I also think that most people wouldn’t like it if they saw it.

“Hopefully, if somebody sees someone pointing an air rifle at a bird, they can just go up to that person and say, ‘Stop that!’”

To report a downed native bird, call the DOFAW in East Hawaii at (808) 974-4221. In West Hawaii, call (808) 887-6063.

Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.