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Feral pigs burrow holes in the forest while looking for food, creating places for still water where mosquitoes breed and spread diseases that kill native birds. Sheep devour native forest trees that rare birds rely on for food. Lacking natural predators, populations of these mammals have exploded around the islands. Invasive weeds are also edging out native plants. One of the newly listed birds is the akikiki or Kauai creeper, a small, dark gray and olive honeycreeper in the Alakai Wilderness Preserve that eats insects and spiders. Only some 1,300 of the birds left, down 80 percent compared to the 1960s. Its listing partner, the green and yellow-feathered Kauai akepa, or akekee, numbers just 3,500, down from 8,000 in 2000. Almost all -- or 98 percent -- of the land designated as critical habitat is already categorized as such for other endangered or threatened species. Most of the land is owned by the state. The Interior Department isn't designating a critical habitat for the loulu palm because the plant is popular among collectors and officials did not want to reveal the location of its habitat.
[Associated
Press;
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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