Makauwahi Cave

Though known historically by the inhabitants of the island, and used as a grave site by ancient Hawaiians, the cave’s paleontological value was first realized in 1992 by David Burney, Lida Pigott Burney, Helen F. James, and Storrs L. Olson, who found the cave’s access sinkhole while searching for fossil sites on the south coast of Kaua{{okina}}i. The traditional name of the cave, Makauwahi, or “smoke eye” in Hawaiian, was rediscovered in 2000 by local archaeologist William Pila Kikuchi, who found the name in a high school student’s essay written over a century previously.

In 2004 the Burneys acquired a lease on the cave property, now the Makauwahi Cave Reserve, spanning {{convert|17|ha|acre|1|abbr=on}}. The land is subject to environmental restoration after having been used for sugarcane and maize farming before being abandoned to weeds. The area was previously being planted with threatened native plants, such as the local Pritchardia palm.Burney & Burney (2008).Levy (2008).

In 2024 it was announced that due a lack of funding Makauwahi Cave would close to the public and ownership would be passed to Grove Farm, a Kaua{{okina}}i-based land-development company. Since this announcement, three of the reserve's seventeen Sulcata tortoises used to keep back encroaching invasive plants have been reported missing.{{Cite web |last=Yunker |first=Scott |date=October 13, 2024 |title=Unique Makauwahi Cave Reserve on Kauaʻi to close Oct. 31 after 20 years of public access |url=https://kauainownews.com/2024/10/13/makauwahi-cave-reserve-on-kaua%CA%BBi-slated-to-close-oct-31-after-20-years-of-public-access/ |access-date=3 March 2025 |website=Kauai Now}}

The site is apparently geologically unique in the Hawaiian Islands, comprising a sinkhole paleolake in a cave formed in eolianite limestone. The paleolake contains nearly 10,000 years of sedimentary record; since the discovery of Makauwahi as a fossil site, excavations have found pollen, seeds, diatoms, invertebrate shells, and Polynesian artifacts, as well as thousands of bird and fish bones.Kido (2008).

The findings document not only the conditions before human colonization of the Hawaiian Islands, but also the millennium of human occupation with the drastic ecological changes that occurred since first Polynesians, and later Europeans and Asians, arrived to the islands and introduced a suite of invasive species such as feral pigs, feral dogs, feral cats, Norway rats, Asian tiger mosquitos, and the Indian mongoose. The reserve reveals the existence of a large number of native birds that became extinct as a result. The cave has also shown that certain plants previously believed to be Polynesian introductions, such as kou (Cordia subcordata) and hala (Pandanus tectorius), existed on the islands prior to human settlement.{{cite news |url=http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2005/Sep/28/ln/FP509280357.html |title=Kaua'i cave tells 10,000-year tale |first=Jan |last=TenBruggencate |work=Honolulu Advertiser |date=2005-09-28}}

File:Chelychelynechen quassus.jpg (Chelychelynechen quassus), an extinct species of goose-like duck with fossil remains found in the Makauwahi Cave.]]

Remains of some 40 species of birds have been found in the cave; half of these species are now extinct. New discoveries of extinct species include giant flightless species of the group Anatidae (ducks and geese), such as the turtle-jawed moa-nalo (Chelychelynechen quassus) and the Kaua{{okina}}i mole duck (Talpanas lippa). Other extinct birds found in the reserve include the Kaua{{okina}}i palila (Loxioides kikuichi), the Kaua{{okina}}i o`o (Moho braccatus) the Kaua{{okina}}i Stilt-owl (Grallistrix auceps) the Wahi grosbeak (Chloridops wahi), and the Hoopoe-billed ʻakialoa (Akialoa upupirostris) Other extinct species with remains found in the reserve include the beetle Blackburnia burneyi and several species of Carelia snails. The remains of the locally extinct laysan teal and Hawaiian hawk have also been recovered.

The Kaua{{okina}}i cave wolf spider and the Kaua{{okina}}i cave amphipod are only known to occur in the caves of Kaua{{okina}}iand a few lava tubes in the area. Also in the park outside of the cave is an enclosure for seventeen Sulcata tortoises from Africa used to control introduced invasive species of weeds introduced by humans to the island, such as Paederia foetida, Paspalum conjugatum, Mimosa pudica, and Megathyrsus maximus. These tortoises function as a Pleistocene rewilding substitute for the extinct giant flightless ducks and geese that used to live in the area. Several endangered species of birds are returning to certain areas the park, such as the black-crowned night heron subspecies N.n. hoactil, Hawaiian duck, Hawaiian gallinule, Hawaiian stilt, Hawaiian coot, and the Hawaiian goose, also called the nēnē. Native plants such as the Melanthera micrantha, Sesbania tomentosa, Hibiscus clayi, Scaevola taccada, Capparis sandwichiana, and Eragrostis variabilis are also repopulating the area. Native trees such as Kokia kauaiensis, and several Kaua{{okina}}i-native Pritchardia trees have been replanted in areas where they once grew. The Makauwahi Cave Reserve also has a habitat for shorebirds such as the migratory Pacific golden plover, the wandering tattler, and the ruddy turnstone subspecies A.i. interpres. There is also a coastal beach habitat for Hawaiian monk seals and green sea turtles, as well as seabirds such as the endangered Hawaiian petrel, the Newell's shearwater, and the great frigatebird subspecies F.m. palmerstoni.{{cite web |title=Welcome to Makauwahi Cave |url=http://www.cavereserve.org/resources/documents/caveBrochure.pdf |website=Makauwahi Cave Reserve |publisher=Makauwahi Cave Reserve |access-date=5 March 2019}}{{Dead link|date=March 2025}}

• Ancient Hawaii
• List of sinkholes of the United States
• Paleoecology

{{reflist|2}}

• {{cite web |url= http://www.livescience.com/history/081025-hawaii-cave.html |title= Hawaiian Cave Reveals Ancient Secrets |access-date= 3 March 2010 |work= David A. Burney and Lida Pigott Burney |publisher= Live Science |date= 25 October 2008 }}
• {{cite journal|author= Kido, Michael H.|year= 2008|title= Hawaii EPSCoR Cyberinfrastructure to Enhance Paleoecological Research at the Makauwahi Cave Reserve Site on Kauai|journal= EPSCoR Newsletter|volume= 11|issue= Spring|pages= 3|url= http://www.epscor.hawaii.edu/nl/spring08vol11.pdf|access-date= 2010-03-03|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090918000730/http://www.epscor.hawaii.edu/nl/spring08vol11.pdf|archive-date= 2009-09-18|url-status= dead}}
• {{cite journal |author= Levy, Sharon |year= 2008 |title= Lessons from a Limestone Cave — Looking to the past to restore the future of a Hawaiian Island |journal= Wildlife Conservation |issue= January/February |pages= 46–51 |url=http://ntbg.org/cms_files/LessonsOfALimestoneCave_WildlifeMagazine_JanFeb08.pdf}}

• [http://cavereserve.org Official website of Makauwahi Cave Reserve]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20100106072459/http://www.usbg.gov/plant-collections/conservation/upload/NTBG%20talk.pdf NTBG: Rooted in the Past, Growing in the Future]

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