Take Kapapa Island, in Kaneohe Bay. The seabirds survive on these islands largely because they lack mongoose, dogs, cats, rats and other predators. But Kapapa also is within easy reach of humans in the heavily populated areas around the bay. That's the problem. Other campers appear to have used stones from historic sites to surround their campfires.
People walking through the area sometimes crush the burrows of the nesting ua'u, or shearwaters.
Last Fourth of July, residents brought fireworks there. The evidence of the red firecracker debris was visible for months afterwards. It's not clear what the effect of this might have been on nesting seabirds, but it's hard to imagine that it wasn't severe. Oahu photographer Jan Becket, researching historic sites, visited the place last year and found an abandoned check. Apparently a child, picnicking there with the family, had picked it up out of its nest, carried it around, and then put it down somewhere else, he said.