Claims that Maui's streetlights kill endangered seabirds head to trial

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that claims Maui County operates streetlights that disorient and kill protected Hawaiian seabirds must go to trial.

by Jeremy Yurow, Court House News, June 16, 2026

HONOLULU (CN) — Every night, endangered Hawaiian seabirds leave their mountain nests and head out to sea. Some of them never make it there, though.

Conservation groups say Maui County’s streetlights are to blame, pulling the birds off course until they fall to the ground exhausted, where they are left vulnerable to predators, starvation and passing cars. The county, however, says the science does not prove those claims.

On Tuesday, a federal judge said the dispute must be decided in a trial.

U.S. District Judge Micah Smith denied summary judgment motions filed by both sides in the case.

“Credibility determinations, the weighing of the evidence, and the drawing of legitimate inferences from the facts are jury functions, not those of a judge ruling on a motion for summary judgment,” Smith wrote.

The Conservation Council for Hawaii and the American Bird Conservancy filed the lawsuit in November 2024. The groups accuse Maui County of violating the Endangered Species Act by operating streetlights that disorient, injure and kill three protected seabird species: the ‘ua’u, or Hawaiian petrel; the ‘a’o, or Newell’s shearwater; and the ‘akē’akē, or band-rumped storm-petrel.

The Endangered Species Act prohibits anyone from killing, harassing or harming a listed species without a permit. The county does not have such a permit.

The conservation groups say the birds, which navigate by moonlight and stars, get drawn in by pools of light cast by streetlamps during their nightly journeys between nesting grounds across Maui, Lana’i and Moloka’i and their feeding waters out at sea. Once grounded, their body shape makes it difficult for them to fly again.

The groups offered two expert witnesses, Jay Penniman and Hannah Moon, who reviewed incident reports documenting downed seabirds on Maui and Lana’i between 2008 and 2024 and concluded county streetlights caused at least 143 instances of seabird fallout.

The county argued the surrounding urban lightscape makes it impossible to pin any particular instance of fallout on a particular streetlight, and the plaintiffs’ experts didn’t account for other sources of artificial light in their analysis.

Smith allowed both experts to testify at an April hearing. In Tuesday’s ruling, he found the county’s challenges to their conclusions raise factual disputes that must be resolved at trial.

The plaintiffs argued that even without their experts, the broad scientific and regulatory consensus that streetlights cause seabird fallout was sufficient for them to win outright. Smith rejected that argument.

That consensus, Smith wrote, may show streetlights can harm seabirds. But concluding Maui County’s streetlights are responsible for harming seabirds on Maui would require the court to accept the plaintiffs’ version of the evidence, which it cannot do at the summary judgment stage, the judge said.

“The county’s arguments might appear unlikely to be persuasive in the end,” Smith wrote, “it cannot be said that they no longer pose a genuine issue for trial.”

Hawaiian Electric Company and Maui Electric Company are also named as defendants, because they operate the streetlights on the county’s behalf. Both took no position on the summary judgment motions.

The case now heads to a bench trial, after both sides waived their right to a jury.

“Even though no jury will sit in this case — all parties agree that a bench trial is appropriate here — the resolution of credibility and assessment of evidence are still matters a judge should handle after a trial, not on summary judgment submissions,” Smith wrote.

A trial date has not yet been set. However, Smith said in April he hopes to begin the trial on Aug. 17.

Representatives for the Conservation Council for Hawaii, the American Bird Conservancy and the County of Maui did not immediately respond to requests for comment.