After a long legal battle, efforts will begin to save a Hawaiian bird.
From Surfbirds.com:

Thanks to a ruling by the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaiʻi, actions to protect the last remaining habitat for the Critically Endangered Palila from destructive browsing and grazing by feral sheep, mouflon-hybrid sheep, and goats can move forward.

The court ruling allows the state to resume aerial hunting of these non-native grazing mammals in the subalpine habitat on the Mauna Kea volcano on the island of Hawaiʻi. The ungulates’ browsing destroys and degrades the māmane-naio forest on which the Palila depends.

Earthjustice, representing the Hawai‘i Chapter of the Sierra Club, the Hawai‘i Audubon Society, and the National Audubon Society, has led the court battle on the issue since 1978. In a series of orders beginning in 1979, the Court found that, to prevent the bird’s extinction, the state must permanently remove the mammals from the Palila’s designated Critical Habitat through all necessary means, including aerial hunts. The state had suspended the hunts following passage of a Hawaiʻi County ordinance in July 2012 that prohibited them. The Court held that, under the U.S. Constitution, the federal Endangered Species Act trumps the county law.

Read the complete article here.