Dead nēnē on the road: Madame Pele should take revenge
Make it an expensive traffic violation for killing protected wildlife while driving national park roads.
Where’s Pele when you need her?
The driver of the vehicle that killed this nēnē (below) needs to step up and personally appease the Hawaiian god, if you know what I mean. Step up to the edge and jump . . .
Drivers who kill wildlife are not my favorite people. They are usually driving inattentively or too fast. So much roadkill could be avoided. Some of it is even intentional, as in “bonus points for driving over the bird.”
The park, fortunately, has stepped up to protect nesting nēnēs.
A nēnē is the Hawaiian state bird, a goose that spends most of its time on the ground because it lives in perfect year-round weather and has little need to fly for migration.
The rarest goose in the world, the nēnē population dropped to 30 in the early 1950s before conservationists brought it back up to 2,500. About 1,000 live in the wild on the Hawaiian islands of Hawaii, Molokai, Maui and Lanai.
I camped one night in Haleakala’s crater on Maui as several nēnēs grazed around my tent, letting me know they were there with their grunting.
I drove alongside the geese in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on Hawaii, where they grazed right along the road. The park’s photo of a dead nēnē likely was taken there, 15 years after my 5 mph visit.
Instead of tweeting about a dead nēnē, I support the park making it a traffic citation with a $5,000 fine possible for anyone killing a nēnē or other native wildlife with a vehicle. This would rarely be enforced, but just having signs would be a deterrent. A judge could hear the facts and determine the fine, if a citation is issued.
Here’s something Australia does to protect its Christmas Island wildlife.