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Hawaii's crisis-level endangered species situation — nearly 75 percent of the nation's historically documented plant and bird extinctions have occurred here — brings together four guests who agree current law is failing but disagree sharply on remedies. Marjorie Ziegler argues for stronger citizen enforcement provisions and habitat protection; Cynthia Salley, whose McCandless Ranch hosts the last wild Alala, or Hawaiian crow, calls the Endangered Species Act "the law of unintended consequences," saying it gives landowners every incentive to hide or remove species rather than protect them. Paul S. Aoki, who represented the McCandless Ranch in litigation, warns that lawsuit-driven enforcement consumes resources that should go toward recovery. Michael Buck explains that birds already bred for reintroduction cannot reach private habitat because landowners, fearing regulatory consequences, lock their gates. The Alala becomes the episode's flashpoint: Salley contends that biologist intervention after the Audubon Society's lawsuit drove the wild population from twelve birds down to five; the president of the Hawaii Audubon Society, participating by phone, argues citizen suits were the only mechanism that brought federal biologists onto the property in the first place.
Transcript
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Companion newspaper commentaries
Commentaries by the guests, published in The Honolulu Advertiser around the broadcast.
