10-02-2007, 06:11 PM
Coqui Control…
And now on to baking soda ~
Sodium bicarbonate, or baking soda, was my latest attempt to find a way to stop the advancing coqui from entering my five acres of A`a/ohia land that I live on in lower Puna.
I will reveal my method and results a little further down. First let me tell you this:
I heard my 1st coqui calling in Lava Tree Park in the fall of 1998---- There was only one! I was on my motorcycle there at dusk. I peered all around trying to spot this strange sounding bird!
I drove my motorcycle a lot and in the following year or two I would begin to hear a few coqui here and there around lower Puna, as we all did. I reported these to the State and even offered to help with an eradication program…. But they had none. I offered to help create one on my own time… but, no, they said they had to wait for authorization and approved funding then do research, then do testing, then get approval to use the remedies… You know the rest of that story.
So here we are, eight years later…. When I drive around at night I hear coqui almost everywhere in lower Puna and beyond. Geez, they are even at Ho`okena!
Yes they hitchhike on vehicles parked after dark at infested areas; they will climb up on anything and hop off wherever you park at night. The only coqui I have had by my house have arrived this way. I have doused those one at a time with hydrated lime in powder form with 100% success - at least for the calling males.
Meanwhile, my neighbor’s lots have slowly been seeing, hearing, more and more of the frogs. Some have battled them in varying ways with limited success, including the hired ‘guns’ with the tankers and sprayers of citric acid and liquid-diluted lime where trucks and hoses could reach.
The neighbors lot done with the lime saw a great reduction in coqui immediately. The land done with citric acid I observed little difference in the coqui chorus there.
Enter the leaf-blower method.
One friend of mine and other people, have been saying that they were blowing dry hydrated lime through the intake of a leaf blower. The lime blasts out in a fine mist that goes everywhere… and I mean everywhere… trees, eyes, lungs… FULL respirator, goggles and head to toe coveralls and gloves a must.(This is an illegal and unapproved method of control) BUT….
Then the good news came…. Baking soda was reported by some as being far more affective on coqui and did little harm to other living creatures or plants. These reports were, and still are, limited in scope.(Also an unapproved method of coqui control)
So let me add my results to the baking soda records…
I bought a Makita 4-stroke (strong & quieter) leaf blower for $200. I removed the removable guard off the blower’s air intake port. The opening is about 4 1/2-inches in diameter. I then purchased a one-piece PVC sewer connection (ST 1/8th bend 4 –cost $9”
that fit perfectly over the lip of the open intake on the blower. I attached this pipe, with the pipe opening pointing up, by only four screws and little 1-inch angle brackets that matched the screw holes already on the Makita and the two pre-drilled holes on the PVC pipe. This took me only minutes to complete.
I had purchased two 50-pound bags of sodium carbonate (baking soda) from BEI in Hilo ($30 each).
I tested the unit by simply slowly tilting a cup of baking soda into the PVC open pipe while the blower was revved and it work really really well at broadcasting the powder for thirty to forty feet and misting beyond that. (Wear a mouth and nose filter)
So last night I took my modified leaf-blower and powdered baking soda up to a friend’s house in Blacksands subdivision. Their small fenced in lot is thick with coqui. So inundated that they have to turn the TV up loud at night to hear it, and have to close the windows when on the phone. A perfect spot to test power-blown baking soda right!
So just before dark, the male coqui were already building up into a chorus of piercing sound. I walked around that property and blasted nearly all of one of the fifty-pound bags of soda onto every blade of grass, bush, shrub and tree in all directions.
I had heard that baking soda takes up to ten minutes to kill the frogs. After fifteen minutes I could still here coqui calling so I did the whole area a second time, and in a few spots where the frogs were closer and still ‘chirping’, like within ten feet, I blasted them a third time…
…. I waited… and waited… and waited…. After all my efforts the din of the calling coqui frogs was just as loud as it was on any given night! They never did go quieter.
This experiment cost me a trip to Hilo and $240 to carry out.
So—whoever says that baking soda has a 97% kill rate is full of it! (Hawaii Island Journal Aug-Sept ‘Healthful Herbalist’ column- see link below).
{Okay-- there is one possible variable I may have to check out with another test. It had been raining just before I blew the area with the powder; perhaps it works better in draught conditions, but even so, I really saturated the area and should have had good results.}
I refuse to blow hydrated lime through the machine. For one, it is very dangerous to the eyes, lungs and any animals downwind. That and it also plugs up the intake port and fan walls of the leaf blower fairly fast. Getting tankers into my area is difficult. Backpack spraying five acres of mostly rough A`a lava, even just the perimeters, is beyond my ability on any ongoing basis. I have thought of moats of limewater, plastic inverted walls, citric sprinkler systems etc. ….
So, I give up. I have a single-walled home with trees right up to it, with mostly screened windows. The coqui sound drives me nuts… Bulldoze my ohia forest property bare? Anyone want to buy some land? – It comes with a one-time used leaf blower and a bag of baking soda, and, it is currently coqui free!
For those that have been told that these little frogs are soothing to have around must have a listen to them at this link -- turn up your speaker volume (takes a bit to load but worth it): http://www.hear.org/AlienSPeciesInHawaii...afrogs.wav
Links that mention baking soda for coqui control:
http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/coqui/Bakingsoda.asp
Hawaii Island Journal August 2007: scroll down to it: “Croakin’ Coquis: New Control Needs Approval”:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/id/AR3HMLM...ms_am_blog
So we now have:
Centipedes- all sizes everywhere, scorpions – had one next to my nose on Kona side, stinging red fire ants are spreading – I’ve been stung a few times at Pohoiki this year, stinging nettle caterpillars are spreading – neighbor was severely stung last week, brown recluse spiders I saw one today and a friend was badly stung last week … Not as fun around here anymore… even the surf spots are getting crowded…. Oh well, could be worse things to deal with, like war and famine; life goes on…
Aloha,
Your neighbor, PunaLeigh
Edited by - PunaLeigh on 10/02/2007 22:23:04
Edited by - PunaLeigh on 10/02/2007 22:27:47
Edited by - PunaLeigh on 10/03/2007 07:17:09
And now on to baking soda ~
Sodium bicarbonate, or baking soda, was my latest attempt to find a way to stop the advancing coqui from entering my five acres of A`a/ohia land that I live on in lower Puna.
I will reveal my method and results a little further down. First let me tell you this:
I heard my 1st coqui calling in Lava Tree Park in the fall of 1998---- There was only one! I was on my motorcycle there at dusk. I peered all around trying to spot this strange sounding bird!
I drove my motorcycle a lot and in the following year or two I would begin to hear a few coqui here and there around lower Puna, as we all did. I reported these to the State and even offered to help with an eradication program…. But they had none. I offered to help create one on my own time… but, no, they said they had to wait for authorization and approved funding then do research, then do testing, then get approval to use the remedies… You know the rest of that story.
So here we are, eight years later…. When I drive around at night I hear coqui almost everywhere in lower Puna and beyond. Geez, they are even at Ho`okena!
Yes they hitchhike on vehicles parked after dark at infested areas; they will climb up on anything and hop off wherever you park at night. The only coqui I have had by my house have arrived this way. I have doused those one at a time with hydrated lime in powder form with 100% success - at least for the calling males.
Meanwhile, my neighbor’s lots have slowly been seeing, hearing, more and more of the frogs. Some have battled them in varying ways with limited success, including the hired ‘guns’ with the tankers and sprayers of citric acid and liquid-diluted lime where trucks and hoses could reach.
The neighbors lot done with the lime saw a great reduction in coqui immediately. The land done with citric acid I observed little difference in the coqui chorus there.
Enter the leaf-blower method.
One friend of mine and other people, have been saying that they were blowing dry hydrated lime through the intake of a leaf blower. The lime blasts out in a fine mist that goes everywhere… and I mean everywhere… trees, eyes, lungs… FULL respirator, goggles and head to toe coveralls and gloves a must.(This is an illegal and unapproved method of control) BUT….
Then the good news came…. Baking soda was reported by some as being far more affective on coqui and did little harm to other living creatures or plants. These reports were, and still are, limited in scope.(Also an unapproved method of coqui control)
So let me add my results to the baking soda records…
I bought a Makita 4-stroke (strong & quieter) leaf blower for $200. I removed the removable guard off the blower’s air intake port. The opening is about 4 1/2-inches in diameter. I then purchased a one-piece PVC sewer connection (ST 1/8th bend 4 –cost $9”
that fit perfectly over the lip of the open intake on the blower. I attached this pipe, with the pipe opening pointing up, by only four screws and little 1-inch angle brackets that matched the screw holes already on the Makita and the two pre-drilled holes on the PVC pipe. This took me only minutes to complete.I had purchased two 50-pound bags of sodium carbonate (baking soda) from BEI in Hilo ($30 each).
I tested the unit by simply slowly tilting a cup of baking soda into the PVC open pipe while the blower was revved and it work really really well at broadcasting the powder for thirty to forty feet and misting beyond that. (Wear a mouth and nose filter)
So last night I took my modified leaf-blower and powdered baking soda up to a friend’s house in Blacksands subdivision. Their small fenced in lot is thick with coqui. So inundated that they have to turn the TV up loud at night to hear it, and have to close the windows when on the phone. A perfect spot to test power-blown baking soda right!
So just before dark, the male coqui were already building up into a chorus of piercing sound. I walked around that property and blasted nearly all of one of the fifty-pound bags of soda onto every blade of grass, bush, shrub and tree in all directions.
I had heard that baking soda takes up to ten minutes to kill the frogs. After fifteen minutes I could still here coqui calling so I did the whole area a second time, and in a few spots where the frogs were closer and still ‘chirping’, like within ten feet, I blasted them a third time…
…. I waited… and waited… and waited…. After all my efforts the din of the calling coqui frogs was just as loud as it was on any given night! They never did go quieter.
This experiment cost me a trip to Hilo and $240 to carry out.
So—whoever says that baking soda has a 97% kill rate is full of it! (Hawaii Island Journal Aug-Sept ‘Healthful Herbalist’ column- see link below).
{Okay-- there is one possible variable I may have to check out with another test. It had been raining just before I blew the area with the powder; perhaps it works better in draught conditions, but even so, I really saturated the area and should have had good results.}
I refuse to blow hydrated lime through the machine. For one, it is very dangerous to the eyes, lungs and any animals downwind. That and it also plugs up the intake port and fan walls of the leaf blower fairly fast. Getting tankers into my area is difficult. Backpack spraying five acres of mostly rough A`a lava, even just the perimeters, is beyond my ability on any ongoing basis. I have thought of moats of limewater, plastic inverted walls, citric sprinkler systems etc. ….
So, I give up. I have a single-walled home with trees right up to it, with mostly screened windows. The coqui sound drives me nuts… Bulldoze my ohia forest property bare? Anyone want to buy some land? – It comes with a one-time used leaf blower and a bag of baking soda, and, it is currently coqui free!
For those that have been told that these little frogs are soothing to have around must have a listen to them at this link -- turn up your speaker volume (takes a bit to load but worth it): http://www.hear.org/AlienSPeciesInHawaii...afrogs.wav
Links that mention baking soda for coqui control:
http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/coqui/Bakingsoda.asp
Hawaii Island Journal August 2007: scroll down to it: “Croakin’ Coquis: New Control Needs Approval”:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/id/AR3HMLM...ms_am_blog
So we now have:
Centipedes- all sizes everywhere, scorpions – had one next to my nose on Kona side, stinging red fire ants are spreading – I’ve been stung a few times at Pohoiki this year, stinging nettle caterpillars are spreading – neighbor was severely stung last week, brown recluse spiders I saw one today and a friend was badly stung last week … Not as fun around here anymore… even the surf spots are getting crowded…. Oh well, could be worse things to deal with, like war and famine; life goes on…
Aloha,
Your neighbor, PunaLeigh
Edited by - PunaLeigh on 10/02/2007 22:23:04
Edited by - PunaLeigh on 10/02/2007 22:27:47
Edited by - PunaLeigh on 10/03/2007 07:17:09