How Taro Farming Works for Wildlife |
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Properly managed taro farms provide a traditional Hawaiian food, and habitat where native waterbirds feed, nest, and rear their young. The birds feed on invertebrates and aquatic plants in flooded patches, moving easily among the widely spaced taro plants, while the canopy of large leaves hides them form predators. Coots and moorhens build floating nests in the patches, using taro systems as anchors. Stilts and Koloa nest on dry ground, but lead their young into the patches to feed.
Farming practices which are beneficial to wildlife are carried out, such as living unharvested buffer zones around nests, and leaving the patches fallow for a month after harvest, which allows birds to feast on invertebrates that build up on decaying vegetation. Although the birds are shy, they adapt to the regular, nonthreatening presence of humans. Stilts even follow tractors, snatching insects turned up by the plow.
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