Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
best bait and trap for mongoose.
#21
I read about a study conducted in Lava Tree state Park in which the stomach contents of mongooses and rats were examined specifically to see how many coquies they eat. Answer: not many. I also read about another study that examined mongoose droppings. Most of them had rat in them. Elsewhere I have read that mongooses do exert a control pressure on rats. It is somewhat naiive to assume that just because the rats are sleeping while the mongooses are hunting that the mongooses don't find them or find rat nests. A former co-worker once described seeing mongooses climbing palm trees in his yard in Kaneohe, hearing squealing, and seeing the mongooses come back down with baby rats. The major problem is that mongooses are generalists, rats are survivors, and in the maelstrom that is the modern Hawaiian ecosystem, ground nesting birds that evolved in specialized niches without land based predators for hundreds of thousands of years are neither.
Reply
#22
The Snails are Giant African Land Snails... Do carry Lepto
Have heard 2 accounts of their introduction to Hawaii... one is that they were an accidental importation on plants... The other is that they were brought in for escargot manufacturing (both have validity, as these are one species that is used (but not a superior species) for edible snails... & were accidentally released... Have heard that they are tougher than more tradition French land snails (which I find to only be a waste of a beautiful garlic sauce) soooo, if you are so inclined, you can eat them (some neighbors do) but make sure that they are thoroughly cooked & handle them with care & wash! wash! wash after handling them...
OH, and thanks for the culinary trip through rodents & weasels.... I think I will pass on the mongoose for now...
Reply
#23
ROFLOL Carey!!! [:p] Mongoose and purple sweet potato pie! LOL!!!![xx(]

Carrie Rojo

"The sun and moon collide. Isn't gravity a funny thing? The universe explodes apart. All the children sing..." Todd Rundgren
Carrie Rojo

"Even the smallest person can change the course of the future..." Galadriel LOTR
Reply
#24
California Garden Variety snails were used regularly for escargot. The preparation included capturing them on a damp board upside down over night, then putting then into a w gallon bucket of corn meal for 24 hours... this basically cleaned them out. They were then taken from that bucket and put into a second bucket of cornmeal and now after 24 hours they were "stuffed. Third day, DINNER.

My opinion is that one could prepare rubber bands pretty much as one would prepare snails and get the same effect... it wasn't ever the snails that tasted good but rather the sauce,etc..

Now if you wanna eat good BUGS... go to the ocean. That's all Lobster and Shrimp are, but somehow they rate higher on my food list!



Just another day in P A R A D I S E !!
I want to be the kind of woman that, when my feet
hit the floor each morning, the devil says

"Oh Crap, She's up!"
Reply
#25
The pestilential snails of California ARE the French escargot! The story I heard is that they escaped from a San Francisco restaurant in the mid-19th Century.
Reply
#26
The snails made their get-away eh? Man, that must have been some chase.

quote:
Originally posted by waynesb

The pestilential snails of California ARE the French escargot! The story I heard is that they escaped from a San Francisco restaurant in the mid-19th Century.

___________________________

Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times".
Reply
#27

The Snails are Giant African Land Snails... Do carry Lepto

Interesting.

If those snails in Puna are giant African snails (Achatina, probably Achatina fulica) then they are indeed the same critters I've seen elsewhere on the planet.

Actually, though, I was thinking about Angiostrongylus cantonensis, the "rat lungworm" when I made that comment about the snails in Puna looking like snails I've seen in Southeast Asia which carry a problem helminth. In Southeast Asia the problem helminth the snails can harbor and transmit to humans is the rat lungworm, a strongylid nematode. A quick web search suggests the rat lungworm has been present in Hawaii since at least the early 1960's (probably much earlier, I'd guess).
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dpd/parasites/...ngylus.htm
http://www.answers.com/topic/rat-lungworm
http://www.digitalnaturopath.com/cond/C688977.html
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3275413
It appears well-established this problem helminth is present in Hawaii and passed to humans by the snails.

By contrast, I skimmed through about fifteen or twenty different online reports on leptospirosis and the only mentions I found connecting leptospirosis with snails sounded tenuous or needing further substantiation (based on circumstantial association or casual assertion). Maybe I just looked in the wrong places, used the wrong keywords in searching, or somesuch but everything I read lined up with the CDC's description. The CDC says leptospirosis Occurs through direct or indirect transmission from a mammalian host. Indirect transmission via contact with Leptospira contaminated water or soil, is thought to be responsible for most cases.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseasein...osis_t.htm
Indirect transmission as used here appears to mean that a mouse or rat urinates or defecates and the infected material is then ingested by the mammal (...still think the "three second rule" is a good idea with those accidentally dropped sweets, kids?)

Don't get me wrong, I am not disputing that leptospirosis is definitely present and a problem on the Big Island, but I am not seeing any smoking gun linking it back to the snails. Rat lungworms and the snails, yes, definititely, but leptospirosis and the snails, no. At least, not yet. If anyone finds a definite, evidence-based, researched report of the snails being demonstrated as an intermediary in transmission or as a host of Leptospira then please do post the link(s) as this would be useful to see.

One report I skimmed through (alas, I did not make note of that article's URL while at the site) did say mongoose can be infected by or harbor Leptospira; this would be consistent with the CDC version.

Escargo, anyone? Bon Appétit!





)'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'(

"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."

Pres. John Adams, Scholar and Statesman


"There's a scientific reason to be concerned and there's a scientific reason to push for action. But there's no scientific reason to despair."

NASA climate analyst Gavin Schmidt

)'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'(

)'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'(

Astonishing skill! This archer is a real-life Legolas and then some!
http://geekologie.com/2013/11/real-life-...rs-anc.php

)'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'(
Reply
#28
OK, I had heard Andy, the ringtail lemur at the zoo had been paralyzed due to lepto from the snails.... so that is where I got the lepto-snail connection... so I guess this is matching what you have, (I just guessed lemurs were closer to us!)

Even so, lungworm is bad, so still handle the buggers with gloves, reachy things & wash, wash, wash !
Reply
#29
Yes, lemurs are fairly similar to humans in the bigger scheme of things. Poor Andy! Sorry to hear about his paralysis. I wonder if it really was lepto, rat lungworm, both, or something else altogether behind it?

This highlights one of the biggest problems with tropical diseases: underidentification and misdiagnosis. Most medical staff in the USA have next to no training in tropical parasitology ...and even with good training and some field experience it can be tough to figure out the actual cause of diverse symptoms which could stem from any of a number of possible causes. Earlier this morning I was on the phone with a couple of physician friends of mine, trying to talk them into moving to the Big Island and setting up shop there, all of us together, once all of our last kids still in the houses have flown the coop for college. After all, who wants to just sit around doing nothing useful in retirement? The challenge of sorting out tropical parasite issues was actually a selling point with this crowd (I spent a couple years in Indonesia examining human and animal fecal specimens under the microscope for parasites, so this at least is one area where I can lay claim to "know my sh*t" -literally. Just amazing what turns up in that smelly stuff). Anyhow, point is, misidentification of illness is probably way more common than correct identification.

Indeed, this probably accounts for people thinking the snails carry Leptospira (which seems questionable) and appearing unaware of the problem with the rat lungworm which snails actually do transmit. Leptospira is a corkscrew-shaped bacterium, whereas the rat lungworm is a nematode (roundworm), so people probably think that the problem from rat lungworm would be worms in the lungs. For rats, yes, but humans are not the usual terminal host for this nematode, so the larval form goes looking for a place to live and develop ...but (usually) in vain. As the CDC says, the outcome of infection with rat lungworm larvae from snails in humans is "eosinophilic meningitis ...The symptoms can include headache, stiff neck, tingling or painful feelings in the skin, low-grade fever, nausea, and vomiting" -which does not sound at all like having worms in the lungs because it is not: the rat lungworm larvae are setting up shop on the spinal cord and brain in humans. My guess is that because the symptoms sound like problems which would trace back to a bacterial infection and Leptospira is a likely candidate to take the fall for such malaise in Hawaii, many instances of angiostrongylosis (rat lungworm larval infections) are pinned on lepto and other illness instead.

Helminths --a collective term for the parasitic worms, including liver flukes (trematodes), roundworms (nematodes, like hookworm), and tapeworms (cestodes)-- are a bothersome lot with stages in their life cycle which live in completely different hosts. The larval form of a helminth can live in a totally different host than the adult form and look so different from one another it is hard to believe they are the same species. The most familiar way to put it may be to suggest an analogy in thinking of a caterpillar as a larval form, a chrysalis as an encysted form, and a butterfly as an adult form. Caterpillars live on leaves and munch them, a chrysalis hangs on a twig or may be buried hidden in the soil, a butterfly flits about sipping nectar from flowers -yet all three are the same exact creature at different stages. Plus the egg stage. Same deal with helminths, except that they generally live on blood and at high magnification look like really scary aliens from a horror/science fiction film or comics (especially Japanese films or comics -what is it with the Japanese and the fascination with tentacles?) The rat lungworm larvae are accidentally, not intentionally, ingested by humans and since we are not the host the larvae were evolutionarily developed to survive in, they cause big problems.

Same deal with anisakiasis, by the way, caused by eating infected raw fish (sashimi and sushi) with larval visceral migraines (think "migraine headache of the abdomen") resulting when larvae of Anisakis nematode worms burrow around in human innards trying to find a place to be happy. They are not happy, and share their experience with us in consequence as they keep moving from place to place, looking for a home away from home in our tissues (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anisakis).

But coming back to the giant African snails and rat lungworm, as I was observing the snails crawling hither and yon in their vast legions amidst a Puna forest the main thought I was thinking to myself was "hmmm, unexploited protein source." Not so much for humans directly (I am with Carey about snails usually being a waste of good garlic sauce, though I must admit I did enjoy excellent escargo at a restaurant in Santa Fe, NM, one time -they were boiled in butter and topped with molten cheese). Rather, my thought was in wondering what it would take in the way of processing to render giant African snails harmless in terms of infectivity (for rat lungworm, lepto, and whatever else they may transmit) and turn them into a calcium-and-protein rich chicken food or duck food. All those snail shells, ground up, would probably make for a good biologically available poultry eggshell mineral source, with processed snail flesh enhancing the diet of the birds.

My guess is that (going at it low tech) boiling up 55 gallon drums of snails would probably do it to kill the bad guys inside the snail flesh, followed by running the cooked snails through a grinder to pulverize the shells, then putting the hot paste through a pelletizing extruder together with starch binders (taro paste?) and other locally available ingredients. Seems like that would do the job. Or, the mill could be set to produce a meal or flour instead of pellets, depending on what the poultry, swine, or whatever take best as feed. All very straightforward as long as there is enough of a raw source of supply for the snails, affordable and well-protected labor to collect the snails (can giant African snails be baited into collecting themselves inside big basket traps or somesuch, I wonder?), and economically viable processing available. If the chickens, ducks, swine, et cetera would even eat the stuff- it may taste bad. Be worth checking. If all else fails then it could serve as garden soil fertilizer.

Such a snail-to-feed-or-fertilizer processing effort need not be terribly capital-intensive and high tech; in Alaska 55 gallon drums of salmon are boiled over wood fires and the salmon slurry then given to the sled dogs for chow or poured on garden patches to fertilize the soil. Cabbages and pumpkins weighing hundreds of pounds each, here. Really!

Does anyone know if this notion with neutralizing snail vector hazard, getting rid of garden pests, and producing either animal feed or garden fertilizer all at once has already been tested out? Seems like if this notion is economically viable and would work in terms of technical feasibility then it would have already been done long ago.



)'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'(

"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."

Pres. John Adams, Scholar and Statesman


"There's a scientific reason to be concerned and there's a scientific reason to push for action. But there's no scientific reason to despair."

NASA climate analyst Gavin Schmidt

)'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'(


Edited for typos.
)'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'(

Astonishing skill! This archer is a real-life Legolas and then some!
http://geekologie.com/2013/11/real-life-...rs-anc.php

)'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'( )'(
Reply
#30
quote:
Originally posted by alaskasteven

(I spent a couple years in Indonesia examining human and animal fecal specimens under the microscope for parasites, so this at least is one area where I can lay claim to "know my sh*t" -literally. Just amazing what turns up in that smelly stuff)....

TMI - Too Much Information [Big Grin]

And I thought my wifes job one year of looking for nematodes on plants under a microscope was bad![Big Grin]

I like your idea of trying to bring in some doctors specifically for tropical related health problems.

-------
Rally For the Plan
Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 3 Guest(s)