05-22-2008, 07:32 PM
Sure thing, Damon. If I have the answers, I'll share them.
What is common between the Coqui and the "SGS" (strawberry guava scale)? I don't understand the analogy. Coqui were not intentionally introduced. They just slipped past the inspection process, and behaved in a tolerable way for the first decade or so. Funding was scarce and mostly used to keep brown tree snakes out of Hawaii. Who'd argue with that?
That's about when it became an obvious problem, and there were no real answers yet. Researchers tested many off-the-shelf products that could be legally used immediately, but nothing really panned out. Before Coqui began to infest the higher elevations, and before all of lower Puna, Hilo and Kona became saturated, caffeine was found to work. Unfortunately, it was never approved for general use, and so research had to go back to the drawing board, and that's where we lost the game ...
Now we know what works, what's cheap, etcetera, but it's too late. Coqui funds are drying up, and nobody will spend that money out of pocket to keep them at bay on a maintenance schedule. Once invasive species go beyond budgets for labor and (controversial) chemicals, a biological control agent is necessary. There are no native amphibians in Hawaii, so there is less need to worry about a frog bio-control crossing over to something related.
What is common between the Coqui and the "SGS" (strawberry guava scale)? I don't understand the analogy. Coqui were not intentionally introduced. They just slipped past the inspection process, and behaved in a tolerable way for the first decade or so. Funding was scarce and mostly used to keep brown tree snakes out of Hawaii. Who'd argue with that?
That's about when it became an obvious problem, and there were no real answers yet. Researchers tested many off-the-shelf products that could be legally used immediately, but nothing really panned out. Before Coqui began to infest the higher elevations, and before all of lower Puna, Hilo and Kona became saturated, caffeine was found to work. Unfortunately, it was never approved for general use, and so research had to go back to the drawing board, and that's where we lost the game ...
Now we know what works, what's cheap, etcetera, but it's too late. Coqui funds are drying up, and nobody will spend that money out of pocket to keep them at bay on a maintenance schedule. Once invasive species go beyond budgets for labor and (controversial) chemicals, a biological control agent is necessary. There are no native amphibians in Hawaii, so there is less need to worry about a frog bio-control crossing over to something related.