HONOLULU (KHON2) — Hawaii agriculture officials are raising awareness over an invasive pest that seems to be multiplying at incredible numbers.
They may look pretty, but the impacts of the rose ringed parakeet certainly are not.
Oahu and Kauai residents may be familiar with the bright green birds, but agriculture officials said their numbers are starting to get to unsustainable levels.
“These are birds, when I was growing up, weren’t really here at these numbers. Now they’re all over the place. And that means that their population is out of control. It keeps growing,” said Hawaii Farm Bureau executive director Brian Miyamoto. “We’ve got to figure out a way to reduce the populations of this pest. It is a pest.”
It is not just the noise levels, the parakeets’ diet in the islands includes lychee, mango, banana and other locally-grown fruits. They are native to central Africa and southern Asia, so Hawaii’s environment simply is not equipped to keep their population in check.
“With no natural predators, these animals can really propagate and grow bigger and bigger and bigger. As far as the population. And then we start seeing the impacts in our environment,” said Senate Agriculture and Environment Committee vice chair Sen. Tim Richards, III.
Despite the birds being objectively beautiful, they are not supposed to be in the Islands, and their impacts on local food production have already been felt.
“Or we’re going to see kind of what we saw in Kauai. An estimate of 10% losses of fruit crops because of the rose ringed parakeet,” Miyamoto said.
“And that’s the problem when we talk about the balance of nature, Mother Nature has worked a long time to get that balance in place. And when we throw that off, either on purpose or accidentally, it creates a lot of problems,” Sen. Richards said.
The Department of Land and Natural Resources said funding was allocated to look into management in 2021 — the parakeets are widespread on Oahu and Kauai, and there have been individual reports on Maui as well.
A Division of Forestry and Wildlife (DOFAW) specialist said in a statement:
“The main tool for control has been culling in agricultural areas and private properties on Kauai where they are seeing the biggest impacts to crops and properties though these efforts have been inconsistent and not led to any impactful decrease in population. The Legislature did invest funding into research to understand the biology, distribution, and management options back in 2021. Some of those options included using bird feeders to deploy a contraceptive, although birds did not use bird feeders on Kauai, but this could be an option for Oahu. There are some tools for individual properties, like netting trees. More research is needed to develop better management options for Kauai and Oahu beyond culling. HDAB did receive funding in FY25 from the legislature specifically for RRP control. I am unsure how those funds were utilized.”
-Chelsea Arnott, DOFAW Natural Resource Management Specialist
“They won’t stop at just farmland. If they wipe out all our farmers, they’re coming to people’s backyards next. They’re coming to our community gardens, we need to get a hold of this invasive pest,” Miyamoto said.