Midway Atoll played a key role in detecting the risk of a tsunami to Hawaiʻi on Tuesday night. It was there at around 6 p.m. that waves made landfall, measuring 6 feet from peak to trough.
Some especially vulnerable inhabitants at Midway were 100 endangered Laysan finches. The birds had been moved there just last week, as part of a continuing plan to reestablish native bird populations. We are told that the birds being tracked did survive the tsunami.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said there were no major impacts to its facilities on Midway. In the coming days, its team will be assessing any additional impacts to the atoll.
The translocation of the finches marks the first time in eight decades that their song could be heard on Midway Atoll. Rats completely eliminated the birds in the 1940s. But for the past five years, biologists have been working to bring the finches, known as ʻekupuʻu, back to the fields and skies of Midway.
The Conversation talked with Jared Underwood, superintendent for the Papahanaumokuākea Marine National Monument, about the Laysan finch relocation project on Midway Atoll as an effort to safeguard the species.
"We were able to bring the birds overnight on a ship, and as soon as the ship arrived, we were able to take a smaller boat and take the finches in their transports to Eastern Island, one of the islands in Midway Atoll," Underwood said.
"And then, we were able to walk them to kind of the center of the island, where we had decided to release them. Quiet and reverent experience as we tried not to make the situation stressful for them. So we just kind of quietly opened their doors and let them out, and almost immediately, the birds started singing and foraging, looking for food, trying things out in their new habitat."
Underwood told HPR that there are three still existing species within the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands: The Nīhoa finch, the Laysan finch and the Nīhoa millerbird.
“About a decade ago, we transferred the Nīhoa millerbird to another island so that it would have multiple populations,” he explained. “Our next goal is to transfer the Nīhoa finch to another island so that it will also have multiple populations, and then the Laysan finch to another island as well. Our goal is to try to spread the risk of having a catastrophic event cause the extinction of one of these species. So over the next few years, we hope to do those additional translocations while continuing to monitor the success and learn from this translocation as we prepare for those translocations.”
This story aired on The Conversation on July 31, 2025. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Hannah Kaʻiulani Coburn adapted this story for the web.
