ʻAkikiki

How it was counted

The figure is the number of wild birds known alive. The last wild sighting was on 29 August 2025, which the Kauaʻi Forest Bird Recovery Project says may have been the last. Birds in conservation breeding aviaries are not part of this number.

Zero here means no wild ʻAkikiki is known alive since 29 August 2025. It is not a survey total that proves none are left.

Earlier figures

• 454 in 2018: the previous count. Source: Kauai Forest Bird Recovery Project.

What moves it

Avian malaria drove the decline. Warming temperatures let the invasive mosquitoes that carry it spread up into the mountain forests, and a genomic study finds inbreeding depression among the last birds.

• avian malaria carried by invasive mosquitoes moving uphill. Source: Kauaʻi Forest Bird Recovery Project.
• avian malaria (genomic study). Source: EurekAlert!.
• warming temperatures that let malaria-carrying mosquitoes spread further uphill. Source: EurekAlert!.
• inbreeding depression among the last birds in conservation breeding. Source: EurekAlert!.

Who is helping

San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance runs the conservation breeding programme for the ʻAkikiki at its Maui and Keauhou Bird Conservation Centers. The Hawaiʻi Division of Forestry and Wildlife, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, The Nature Conservancy and American Bird Conservancy are credited alongside the Alliance for years of work to keep the species from being lost and to give it a future.

The next count

Counts for the ʻAkikiki are irregular, and no date for the next is known as of 12 November 2026.

Sources

• Kauaʻi Forest Bird Recovery Project Last checked 12 November 2026.
• Kauai Forest Bird Recovery Project‘Akikiki Last checked 12 November 2026.
• EurekAlert!New study finds recovery is still possible for critically endangered Hawaiian honeycreeper with urgent intervention Last checked 12 November 2026.

What changed

• 12 November 2026 Added to Live Species, gone from the wild: none known in the wild (August 2025).

Every change on the site