The first specimen of the palila was collected in 1876 at the Greenwell Ranch on the Big Island by Pierre Étienne Théodore Ballieu (1828–1885), who was French consul in Hawai‘i from 1869 to 1878.

This is loudly communicated between birds advertising food during the morning and evening, and according to native informants, it is given most frequently during the day as rain approaches.

In 1978, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that feral sheep and goats had to be removed from critical habitat of the bird.

[5] The San Diego Zoo has a captive breeding program for the palila based in the Keauhou Bird Conservation Center on Hawaii Island.

In May 2019, 6 palila were reintroduced to a patch of restored forest on the island in order to establish a second population, marking the first reintroduction attempt for the species.

These contain much vile-tasting phenolic compounds in the seed coat and a lethal amount of quinolizidine alkaloids in the embryos themselves.

By some undetermined means, adult palila are able to cope with a dose of these toxins that would kill other small animals in mere minutes.

The seed coat is then neatly cut open by the bill's edge and the embryo nudged out with the bird's tongue.

[7] Palila also eat naio berries and other fruit (such as the introduced Cape gooseberry[2]), and māmane flowers, buds, and young leaves.

Nestlings, apparently not yet able to cope with the amount of poison contained in the seeds, are fed to a large extent on Cydia caterpillars.

Palila do not seem to mind the adverse taste or are physically unable to perceive it, given that they go to great lengths to obtain this food during breeding season.

The female constructs a loose, cup-shaped nest around 4 inches (10 cm) in diameter high up in a māmane or naio tree.

The Palila was the subject of a number of lawsuits brought by various environmental groups under the Endangered Species Act to protect the bird's habitat.

Here, however, the bird itself appeared as the named plaintiff in the case caption: Palila v. Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources, 852 F.2d 1106 (9th Cir, 1988).

Other notable Endangered Species Act cases including those involving the Northern Spotted Owl are similarly captioned.