Introduced Japanese white-eyes pose major threat to Hawaii's native and endangered birds

Thursday, September 17, 2009 - 11:49 in Biology & Nature

In the late 1920s, people intentionally introduced birds known as Japanese white-eyes into Hawaiian agricultural lands and gardens for purposes of bug control. Now, that decision has come back to bite us. A recent increase in the numbers of white-eyes that live in old-growth forests is leaving native bird species with too little to eat, according to a report published online on September 17th in Current Biology. The findings show that introduced species can alter whole communities in significant ways and cause visible harm to the birds that manage to survive.

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