McCandless Ranch is a family run and owned ranch in the mauka lands of South Kona, Hawaii. The 5,600 acre parcel of land and its native koa and ōhi’a forests are home to many endangered and rare species, and is endowed with a profusion of intact and diverse flora and fauna in Hawaii. These include small but biologically important populations of rare native birds including ‘Akiapola‘au, ‘Ākepa, I‘o, and Hawai‘i Creeper, as well as strong populations of native ‘Elepaio, ‘I‘iwi, ‘Amakihi, and ‘Apapane. In addition to birds, the property supports a diversity of native plants, including several rare and endangered species, and many of the more common native plants and ferns found in an intact Hawaiian rain forest.
The ‘Alalā (Hawaiian crow) once lived in the forests on and around McCandless Ranch, and in the mid-90s only a few individuals remained. Those crows were caught by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to be bred in captivity at the Keauhou Bird Conservation Center. This program has been successful and plans are in progress to reintroduce the ‘Alalā to its native habitat, the lands of McCandless Ranch and the adjacent Kona Forest Unit of the Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge.
McCandless ranch and the surrounding area is zoned for agriculture, which allows logging and subdivision into five acre lots. A number of properties in this South Kona forest area have been commercially logged and subdivided over the years for estates resulting in habitat fragmentation and the loss or degradation of the ecological and watershed systems of the surrounding forest area.
With funding provided through the sale of carbon offsets, ERA and McCandless ranch plan to permanently prevent potential subdivision and ensure the native forests are conserved to secure habitat for native Hawaiian species for the long term of all.
