what's eating my plants?!

[kalianna]

For the last month, I've been finding half-long green palm fronds on the ground.  They've been chewed off half way down the leaf.  The leaves are intact and just what looks like bite marks along the stem.  I'm not a big fan of palms anyway, but today I found that they're doing the same thing to my keiki ulus.  That means war.  I've never seen this sort of damage before.  Any ideas?  Rats?  But why?

[terracore]

Up in OLE where we are at there has been a rat bloom this year. They've never gone after palm fronds but I have read about it happening to others. Maybe more so when a bloom in population dwindles other resources.

A few years ago we had a coconut palm hit by lightning right in front of us. It literally rained down electrocuted flaming rats. I had no idea so many rats lived up in the palms, and this is a property with active rat population control measures. There was a rat bait station with effective poison less than 20 feet from the palm.

Rats follow pheromone trails and mimic what other rats do. If one rat starts a new behavior pretty soon most of the rats will be doing it. The only way to break the cycle is to kill all the rats.

[kalianna]

Thanks, Terracore. But I'll never kill all the rats. I'd spray the ulus with something distasteful like peppermint oil, but the rain will wash it right off. I guess I'll just have to wait until it dries out a little-- if there's anything left of them.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

... rained down electrocuted flaming rats. 

Oh man.  Obviously there’s no way to get a photo, in the moment, of a lightning strike as it happens, but I would definitely pay $25 for a glossy 8x10 of that.

[terracore]

Most of the rats staggered at most 15 feet before dying but one seemed completely unphased that it had been electrocuted and was on fire.

I had the hose on and was trying to keep the fire from spreading, so I doused the rat. It ran off.

[Or1on]

"Up in OLE where we are at there has been a rat bloom this year."

There is a rat bloom every year in Spring.  I've lived here 40 years and this is nothing new.  

If you want rats to stop climbing palms you can wrap the trunk with a metal sleeve about 5 feet up.

[geezer]

Something just gobbled the tops of one of my ulus. Big bite marks, too high for Porky, whos had ploughed my lawn, eaaten my bananas, sugar cane, coconuts and Monstera (deliciousa) gotta be rats.

[kalianna]

Something just gobbled the tops of one of my ulus. Big bite marks, too high for Porky, whos had ploughed my lawn, eaaten my bananas, sugar cane, coconuts and Monstera (deliciousa) gotta be rats.

Yeah, that.  The good news is that they seemed to have stopped here.  Still not sure if my ulu will recover.