Endangered Bird Ends Friday Night Football In Hawai'i

If you're at a high school football game this fall, odds are that the game is on a Friday night somewhere... could be a Thursday, or a Saturday if there are too many schools and not enough stadia for the teams to play in...

Yes, we used the word "stadia..." Latin plural... look it up, people...

But what if something stood in your way from having any kind of games... like, f'rinstance an endangered bird indigenous to the place you live.

The HQ would like to introduce you to Newell's shearwater ((pictured, thanks hawaiinewsnow)), or the Hawaiian shearwater depending on your point of reference. With a declining population on the islands, the folks on Kauai had a problem.

A few dozen of these birds, mainly newborns, are dying every year because they look at the stadium lights on the island. They become disoriented from the brightness since they're flying directly from their nests to the ocean. With population down 60-percent in the last twenty years, the powers that are made Friday night football the extinct party for the 2010 season.

Duane Shimabuku talks to a lot of the parties involved...
((HT: KGMB-TV Honolulu))


Kauai high school games will be moved to Saturdays after the first two weeks of the season in September.

And save your "this game's for the birds" jokes...
They're not all that original...