[beerandt]

Hawaii had iirc 14 species of birds on the list that were all native to either one island or a portion of one, with some preferring certain altitudes or only living on certain plateaus, etc.

The funny thing about Hawaii though, is that there are only two or three (extremely isolated) places that remain with any true Hawaiian plant habitat, because Polynesians brought their own plants with them that almost universally outcompeted the native plants.

Birds on islands are some of the quickest animals to specialize and differentiate into new species.

Which makes Hawaii incredibly interesting, from an island biogeography perspective.

Something as simple as the fact that no mosquitos made it to Hawaii until Captain Cook accidently introduced them, means no native fish, frogs, birds, lizards, or anything that specialized in eating them.

Now extrapolate that to wiping out all the native flora and replacing it.

That so much biodiversity remains in Hawaii today ought to actually give us some comfort in nature's ability to quickly adapt to significant change.

[bpicolo]

The introduction of the mongoose to hawaii was a big problem for bird biodiversity

[beerandt]

There's similar issues with possums in New Zealand, who also have no natural predators there and have flourished. New Zealand wants to eradicate them to save their native birds.

But what's interesting is: the same possum is extremely endangered in it's native habitat in Australia because of so many introduced predators.

So do you go to war to kill the invasive species, even if that contributes to their extinction?

Does it matter that as an invasive species, they might cause multiple species of birds to go extinct?

Lots of interesting ecological, biological, and ethical things to consider.

[dustintrex]

The common brushtail possum is very common in Australia and far from endangered, if anything it's adapted quite well to urban life. There are other species of possums that are endangered, but they're not the ones in NZ.