Human Arrival
Human contact, first by Polynesians and later by Europeans, has had a significant impact. Both the Polynesians and Europeans cleared native forests and introduced non-indigenous species for agriculture (or by accident), driving many endemic species to extinction. Fossil finds in caves, lava tubes, and sand dunes have revealed an avifauna that once had an endemic eagle, two raven-size crows, several bird-eating owls, and giant ducks known as moa-nalos.
Today, many of the remaining endemic species of plants and animals in the Hawaiian Islands are considered endangered, and some critically so. Plant species are particularly at risk: out of a total of 2,690 plant species, 946 are non-indigenous with 800 of the native species listed as endangered.
Read more about this topic: Endemism In The Hawaiian Islands
Famous quotes containing the words human and/or arrival:
“A belief in hell and the knowledge that every ambition is doomed to frustration at the hands of a skeleton have never prevented the majority of human beings from behaving as though death were no more than an unfounded rumour.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“National literature does not mean much these days; now is the age of world literature, and every one must contribute to hasten the arrival of that age.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)