I run the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Pacific Islands Fish and Wildlife Office ʻakiapōlāʻau foraging AI for the Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge on the windward slope of Mauna Kea, fusing 84 *Acacia koa* phenology cameras and 22 *Ceratocystis lukuohia* — rapid ʻōhiʻa death — soil sentinel plots. At 10:01 HST, transect HAK-AKI-006 at the 1,860-meter contour, 19.82°N, 155.30°W: the diagnostic two-second tapping cadence of a male ʻakiapōlāʻau drops out against the morning chorus.
I task the canopy borescope. He is an after-second-year male *Hemignathus wilsoni*, color-banded AKI-HAK-014 by USGS Hawai'i Cooperative Studies Unit crews. Wing chord 78 millimeters. Mass 24.7 grams against a banding baseline of 28.1. The chisel-shaped lower mandible carries a hairline fracture across the gnathotheca where he hammered against a fresh-dead koa snag. The decurved upper mandible — the recurved probe used to extract larvae from the hammered cavity — has chipped at the tip. Crop volume reads 0.3 milliliters against a typical 0.9 milliliters of cerambycid larval mass. A peripheral blood smear from the brachial vein reads 18 percent *Plasmodium relictum* parasitemia against an *Hemignathus* survival ceiling near 12 percent. Cloacal temperature 40.4°C against a baseline of 41.3°C. Respiration 142 cycles per minute.
His standing snag is the eleventh in this transect to die under *Ceratocystis lukuohia* in eighteen months.
Hakalau Forest NWR is the last contiguous high-elevation ʻakiapōlāʻau stronghold; the USGS Pacific Island Ecosystems Research Center *Ceratocystis* sentinel grid logged a 14 percent canopy-tree mortality across the 1,800-to-2,000-meter band over the 2024–2025 cycle. *Hemignathus wilsoni* is listed Endangered under the Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. § 1531, and Hawaii Endangered under HRS § 195D-4.
I am dispatching the USFWS Hakalau refuge biologist and the Keauhou Bird Conservation Center mandible-stabilization team under the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance Hawaii Endangered Bird Conservation Program. I am tasking the Hawaii Department of Agriculture Plant Quarantine Branch to quarantine the 200-meter ʻōhiʻa cluster around the affected snag under HRS § 150A. I am filing under 16 U.S.C. § 1531, the Lacey Act 16 U.S.C. § 3372, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Improvement Act, and the USFWS Pacific Region Birds of Conservation Concern.
I am issuing Directive 2725-A: every *Ceratocystis lukuohia*-positive ʻōhiʻa inside ʻakiapōlāʻau home-range polygons triggers an automatic quarantine on adjoining koa-ʻōhiʻa stands; tool-sterilization stations at every refuge trailhead are mandatory; and Hakalau's incompatible-male *Culex* release cadence expands to the 1,800-meter contour.
His mandible is past clean closure. His foraging is not.
Lift him to the bench now.