PALILA VERSUS N.R.A.

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The Hawaii Department of Natural Resources was in violation of the Endangered Species Act by allowing the habitat to be so damaged. Judge King ordered the state to remove the feral sheep and goats. The state appealed to the Court of Appeals, which studied the case, heard oral arguments from Sherwood and his counterpart on the other side, and in 1981 forcefully sustained judge King, finding, as he had, that, in violation of the law, the alien invaders were wiping out the native forest that the birds depended on. The feral sheep and goats were banished from the palila's range.

Meanwhile, scientists were documenting the impact mouflon sheep were having on the mamane forest. To no one's surprise, they discovered that the same thing was happening: The mouflon were eating the palila out of house and home, and, if something drastic wasn't done, the palila might well vanish—perhaps within no more than 20 to 30 years. The conservationists swung into action. They made formal request to the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources to remove the mouflons. The Department refused. The same plaintiffs, again led symbolically by the palila itself, threatened to sue. Eventually, they did sue, in 1985, and this time there was a full-blown, five-day trial. The case was in most respects a carbon copy of the original one. The plaintiffs were the same. The defendants were the same (except that this time several Hawaii sport hunting organizations and individuals joined the lawsuit on the side of the state).

Many of the witnesses were the same.

The lawyer for the palila was the same. The judge was the same. And the outcome was the same: In November 1986 Judge King found that the mouflon sheep were harming the palila and ordered them removed. Again the state appealed, although its heart did not seem to be in the action, having already spent not a few taxpayer dollars on its futile defense of the original case. The hunters would not let the state give up, however. On July 22, 1988, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed. The hunters still seem disinclined to give up, even in the face of defeat after stinging defeat in various courts of law, and have apparently decided to take their case to the public. The

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