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were able to finally hit the goal...the number of stations we were hoping to, as we got up <br /> to 1,000 stations...a little over 1,000 stations. And in 2025 so far, we surveyed 788 <br /> stations. And our next survey is coming up in November. And just too kind to highlight <br /> what our thoughts are to be the causes of this Palila decline we've seen over the years, <br /> the number one (1) cause seems to be drought. So, they seem to be really tied to the <br /> drought index and vegetation index we've been looking at, and one that has been more <br /> of a problem historically, is habitat loss. So, a lot of their previous habitat has burned or <br /> browsed or converted via ranching and then the other major issues that they are <br /> experiencing are predation by nonnative predators, most impactful are feral cats, rats and <br /> barn owls maybe playing some effect. One other possible place where they are struggling <br /> via competition and this actually primarily with things like introduced yellow jackets ( <br /> Vespula pensylvanica), ants and other insect pests that are eating their moth prey, which <br /> is really important for them during the breeding season, because they are trying to feed <br /> the young Palila a lot of protein. So, this paper was really super helpful as well, this came <br /> out, also this year, and this one is looking at across the board, what are the things that <br /> seem to be really tying into the Palila population and abundance. This one we're really <br /> interested in looking at how drought impacts vegetation health and how that correlated <br /> to the Palila population. And so, basically, they did a couple of different things. They <br /> looked at the change of the Palila distribution, and they were looking for key population <br /> break points. And I kind of mentioned that earlier, but basically what they've seen is Palila <br /> have really shifted from this Northern...the Northwestern part of the range into this <br /> Northeastern part of the range over the last several years. This particularly occurred <br /> between 2005 to 2009 when we had these key inflection points in the Palila populations. <br /> And 2005 is really key because it is when we had the steepest rate of Palila decline, so for <br /> that year the slope was about 2.25 and so we saw this really hard, hard decline in the <br /> Palila numbers starting that year. So, what is this Normalize Difference Vegetation Index <br /> (NDVI)? <br /> NOTE: A vegetation index (VI) is a numerical value derived from satellite or aerial imagery that <br /> quantifies the density, health, and vigor of vegetation by analyzing the light reflected and <br /> absorbed by plants. By comparing light reflectance in different spectral bands, especially <br /> the red and near-infrared (NIR) regions, Ws help monitor vegetation cover, assess <br /> agricultural conditions, and understand ecological dynamics. <br /> This is an interesting one, where you can actually use remote imaging, use satellite <br /> imaging to basically assess the health of the plants in a given area. So, basically you look <br /> at the percentage of NIR and the percentage of Red coloration that is reflected off of <br /> plants. <br /> NOTE: The "percentage of the NIR formula" refers to the Natural Increase Rate (NIR) formula, <br /> which is calculated as the crude birth rate (CBR) minus the crude death rate (CDR), then <br /> divided by 10 to express the result as a percentage of the population. <br /> 11 <br />