A new study takes a critical look at a belief that’s made its way into history textbooks and scientific literature.
Did Hawaiians really cause the extinctions of birds like the flightless ibis or moa-nalo? HPR reached out to two scientists to help with the answer.
Kristen Harmon is a researcher at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa; Kawika Winter is an associate professor at the Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology and director of the Heʻeia National Estuary and Research Reserve.
They spoke with The Conversation about their new study that examined four hypotheses: overkilling, deforestation, climate change, and species introduction.
Harmon explained that their research compared timelines of likely waterbird extinctions with evidence of ecosystem change throughout Hawaiʻi. They said that no evidence supported the claim that Hawaiians hunted birds to extinction — and there was little evidence of waterbird fossils found in archaeological human sites.
“Research like this is in a growing body of scholarship that's saying, ‘Hey, let's maybe re-look at this evidence,” Winter said. “Is it really true that humans have always caused destruction, wherever we go? And the answer is no."
He said Indigenous cultures all over the world developed societies and systems that allowed people to thrive alongside biodiversity.
“If that's the future we want for ourselves, then let's look into the past and see how maybe some of our ancestors did it in the past. And if that's really the case, then we can have hope for the future moving forward, and I think that's the biggest message of this paper, is that the future is not all despair. We still have hope," Winter said.
Harmon said the evidence shows that a combination of climate shifts, land use changes and species introductions likely drove waterbird extinctions.
"Not only was it the combination of those factors, but those factors can actually have cascading effects. So actually, any previous extinctions could have caused new extinctions of waterbirds, and so basically, that it's a very complex, not single-factor answer is the point. So we're referring to this new hypothesis as the 'regime shift extinctions' hypothesis," Harmon told HPR.
This story aired on The Conversation on Feb. 2, 2026. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. This segment was adapted for the web.
