Our mission is to help preserve Hawai‘i’s natural environment for generations to come through native bird rescue and rehabilitation, community integration, and education outreach.
We are the only Federal and State permitted facility on Kaua‘i approved to rehabilitate native Hawaiian species. We accept all native Hawaiian birds and the Hawaiian hoary bat for rehabilitation.
Newell's Shearwater / 'a'o
The Save Our Shearwaters program was originally initiated by the Hawai‘i Department of Land and Natural Resources/Division of Forestry and Wildlife in 1979 to respond to the annual grounding of hundreds of light-attracted fledgling shearwaters and petrels. Over the years, Save Our Shearwaters evolved into a multispecies rehabilitation effort as the need for professional wildlife rehabilitation services continued to grow on Kaua‘i. In the late 2000s, SOS transitioned from a state-run program to a registered nonprofit association, operating under a fiscal sponsor. Currently, the fiscal sponsor of SOS is the Hawaii Wildlife Center.
Since Save Our Shearwaters was created in 1979, volunteers and residents have collected more 35,000 seabirds— 90 percent of which recovered and were released back to the wild. On average, over half of the patients admitted to SOS each year are threatened or endangered species. SOS maintains aid stations at every local fire station for the public to drop off grounded or injured native bird. SOS is open 7 days a week, 365 days a year and has a 24/7 hotline that you can call or text if you find an injured native bird.
We are open from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. seven days a week. If you have a bird emergency, a staff member can always be reached via the SOS hotline phone - (808) 635-5117.
