Photos circulating on social media of two dead nēnē, Hawai‘i’s state bird, have upset some people on the Big Island.
Carl Neville, who posted the photos on Wednesday, told Big Island Now that he was arriving to work in Waikōloa when he stopped at the Queens’ Marketplace. As he pulled into the parking lot at about 6:30 a.m., he saw the two birds, one of which appeared lifeless.
“The first one was very absolutely dead because the guts were out and everything,” Neville recalled.
He couldn’t tell about the second nēnē.
“I stopped my car immediately,” he said. “I just couldn’t leave him in the middle of the road.”
As he went to pick up the second bird, it also was lifeless.
Neville, who arrived just after the incident happened, said his co-worker saw a vehicle run over the native geese. Neville included pictures of the vehicle in his social media post.
Neville said there were cameras all over the parking lot, which would have made it an “easy win-win case,” but the cameras were not working.
The state Department of Land and Natural Resource confirmed in an email to Big Island Now that officers with the Division of Conservation and Resource and Enforcement responded to the shopping area and spoke with the occupants of the vehicle that were implicated on social media. But the officers were not able to speak to witnesses
No citations have been issued at this time.
Nēnē are federally listed as a threatened species and state listed as endangered.
Neville said nēnē are known to congregate on the mountain side of the parking lot behind the food court because they drink from the sprinklers.
Anyone who works or is familiar with the area knows this, Neville said. And even if they aren’t familiar, they should be driving more slowly through the parking lot.
