On a wide, grassy slope overlooking the ocean off Molokaʻi’s east end, you can usually hear muted honking and whispering peeps.
That’s the sound of nēnē at Puʻu O Hoku Ranch. There’s a small but thriving flock of the Native Hawaiian geese living and raising their young. The endangered species is back from the brink of extinction. Just decades ago, it wasn’t a sure thing we’d be hearing the sound of nēnē today.
“This is a restoration of a species that had completely disappeared,” said Puʻu O Hoku owner Lavinia Currier. “The Molokaʻi population was zero when we started, so that was the exciting thing of bringing these geese back in.”
The Ranch has been key to a conservation partnership that’s raised the current Molokaʻi nēnē numbers to nearly 60 birds.
In the 1950s, there were only about 30 nēnē alive in the wild in Hawai'i. Now, Afsheen Siddiqi, a wildlife biologist with the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, said they’re found on Maui, Kauaʻi, Hawaiʻi Island and Molokaʻi, thanks to recovery efforts and conservation partnerships.
“The estimated 2025 population is 4,323 birds across the state,” she said. “It's still an extremely conservation reliant species, meaning that if we just walk away from doing any kind of management, the species would continuously decline.”
Feral cats, rats, and mongooses once ravaged the ground-nesting nēnē.
Puʻu O Hoku technician Blaze Juario walked around the three-acre, predator-proof fence they’ve built.
“So we have traps along the whole, you can see them all along the edge,” he motioned towards the 6-foot fence line. “There's 53 of them. I check every single one.”
Now, the birds have a safe haven here, but are free to come and go. Puʻu O Hoku has planted native grasses for the birds to graze, and Juario keeps fresh water available.
Each week, he checks the birds and records data. That data is sent to renewable energy company Brookfield, another partner in the recovery effort that assists with funding and project reporting.
While Juario keeps interactions with nēnē to a minimum to ensure they don’t imprint on humans, he’s learned to recognize some individuals.
One male, known as "667" based on his identification number, is easy to spot because of his narcissistic tendencies. He admires himself in the water pool, has been known to seek out reflective glass around the Ranch, and loves to look at his reflection in the trail cameras around the enclosure.
That triggers the cameras to take photos, laughed Juario. And when he downloads the images every month, “More than half of them is of him. You're talking like 10,000, 15,000 pictures!”
Juario also gets the first peek at new babies.
“They started out as little balls of lint, and then within like two weeks they're just like three, four times its size,” he said.
This year, Molokaʻi nēnē pairs successfully nested three times, with 11 new goslings.
“Just having like baby nēnē on the property was really exciting for everyone,” said Galen McCleary, Puʻu O Hoku general manager. “The crew here was super excited, but I think more broadly, too, in the community, people were excited to see that.”
The goslings hatched on the property are in addition to birds that have been translocated from Kauaʻi, where there’s over 2,000 nēnē and high genetic diversity.
Last year, more than 20 birds were brought over to launch Molokaʻi’s population. This year, another translocation took place. The birds arrived by helicopter in crates. They are released into a fully enclosed holding pen so they can acclimate to their new home before being released into the fenced acreage.
Timing is important. DLNR’s Division of Forestry and Wildlife biologists bring mated pairs (they mate for life) with their goslings so the families will stick together as they settle in and make Molokaʻi their residence for generations to come.
After the new transplants settle in, Forestry and Wildlife staff weigh and clip identification bands to their legs.
It’s a dirty job. Wings flap and dander flies. Getting pooped on and scratched is par for the course.
Several more translocations to the island are planned over the next five years. Based on U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service nēnē recovery plans, the goal is to have a few hundred nēnē naturalized on Molokaʻi, said Siddiqi.
“These birds have been here long before us,” she explained. “And once humans arrived, we started to see declines, especially when Western colonization occurred in the Hawaiian Islands. So we have a responsibility as humans who've caused this decline to help recover the species.”
Back in the early 2000s, there was a first effort to reestablish the native nēnē on Molokaʻi. There were several translocations, and the numbers were on the rise, but then, saw a sharp decline. Though it's not clear exactly why, biologists attribute it to predation and lack of food sources.
Thanks to predator trapping, fencing and native planting, the team’s work is paying off this time.
There’s been another marker of success in the program this year. The island’s nēnē are spreading their wings. Some have been spotted in central Molokaʻi, including near Molokaʻi High School. That’s great news for the species, though knowing they’re out on their own does bring mixed feelings for Juario.
“That's the ultimate goal, is to have them disperse from here, but I would rather them stay here [at Puʻu O Hoku], because inside the pen, they don't have the challenges that are outside.”
For John Medeiros, DLNR wildlife manager for Maui Nui who leads the nēnē project, it’s important to remind people not to feed or approach them, and that they’re wild animals.
“Now people are seeing nēnē where they never seen nēnē before, and there is concern, and public education is very important for this population to survive,” he said.
For Currier, it’s also a thrilling sign of success.
“It's so exciting to think of the high schoolers looking out their window and seeing three or four nēnē landing on the lawn; it's just wonderful,” she said. “We need to all have our eyes out and our ears out for how they're doing, so that we don't experience another decline.”
It’s not been easy, but Medeiros is hopeful for the future.
“You're looking at habitat loss, you're dealing with predators and development, and it's challenging, but I think we have a chance,” he said. “We have a fighting chance.”
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