2025 Festival Highlights

---

Our heartfelt gratitude to everyone who came out to the Hawaiʻi Island Festival of Birds! The 2025 HIFB event on October 4 was our third year in Hilo at the beautiful Grand Naniloa Hotel (though HIFB has been around since 2016… almost a decade!). This year’s 2025 Hawaiʻi Island Festival of Birds had a record-breaking turnout with over 800 attendees, plus 43 booths and 17 presentations.

Inspired by the passion we have seen from keiki at previous festivals, we invited a student panel to our presentation stage for the first time. The students presenting their manaʻo in the Making Moʻolelo session took us through a full range of emotions – we were in awe of their commitment to becoming a force for conservation, we cheered as they shared their amazing Palila Rap, and we tried really hard not to ugly cry from the intense mix of pride and hope stirred up by the next generation.

The theme of this festival was “Celebrating Successes” – a time for us to take the opportunity to see how far we have come and celebrate these victories together. Hearing the critical success stories of important conservation work, seeing the rise of native species representation in local arts, crafts, and businesses, learning how we can help continue to create successes, and witnessing the incredible drive of the youth who will be inheriting the reins all collectively helps us to keep going.

Mahalo again for coming out to support the festival and, more importantly, each other, as we all continue on this important mission to save the native birds of Hawaiʻi.

—————

The 2025 Festival page has been preserved for reference.
HIFB 2025