In August 2011, I traveled to Kauai as part of the Environmental Journalism Fellows program, run by the National Tropical Botanical Garden. For a week, I learned how these remote islands shaped such unique flora and fauna. Unfortunately, the Hawaiian islands also have the dubious distinction of being the "endangered species capital of the world". A highlight of the trip was a visit to the Makauwahi Cave, “the poor man’s Jurassic Park”, according to paleoecologist Dave Burney. Burney and his wife, Lida Piggott Burney (both pictured here), are searching the soil for fossilized clues of native species--using that information to restore nearby land. The Burneys let the fellows sieve some slumped soil inside the cave, not expecting we’d find anything. Yet, Laura Petersen and I uncovered the bones of a, possibly 2000-year old, honeycreeper--birds, many of which are now extinct, that evolved distinctive beaks to access plant nectar. Very exciting!
