coqui

[Devany]

I don't think they eat the bugs we want to get rid of... i heard somewehere that they did not eat anything we don't want around... let us hear more about what they do eat.

Aloha au i Hawai`i,
devany

Devany Vickery-Davidson
East Bay Potters
www.eastbaypotters.com

[DrJ]

I can't say much to the coqui noise etc. I didn't think it was so bad when I was there, but then again.. it wasn't sitting under my window. I still just have to wonder if it's such a bad problem that you would want government workers entering your property without consent to try and get rid of them???? And from what I understand, haven't previous attempts to get rid of them failed miserably?

Maybe I'm completely off-base, but I'd rather put up with the problem than have anyone tramping around my yard without permission.

[MarkP]

A couple of us have already stated how at first exposure we didn't think much of the noise, but when we got in the right conditions, or wrong conditions depending on your perspective, we changed our assesment to "Wow! That's really loud!" I'm kind of a pragmatic, skeptical guy. At first I thought about how some people will complain about anything and are never satisfied. I tell you that I was honestly shocked at how loud the little bastards can be when they occur in significant numbers and they are near enough to your house. The only thing you can really do is to cut down all the vegetation near your house.

Life goes on, no one will die from this, and I have spoke to people who have gotten so used to the noise that those they speak to on the phone ask them "what's that noise?" and they have to think about it, but if you moved somewhere or grew up somewhere and cherished the silence at night, and now the only advice the experts can give you is to clearcut your entire property, then yes you have lost something of great value.

I live in fear that along with coqui frogs and bee mites we will someday get brown tree snakes from guam. That will be the end of Hawaii as we know it. In their natural habitat the population of these snakes is limited in part by the lack of small prey for juvenile snakes. Combine the remarkable reproductive capacity of the brown tree snake with the equally remarkable population density of coqui frogs and you get the makngs of a truly horrific environmental disaster.

It's not just about the noise they make. It is also about the insects they eat that are part of the native food chain and the rats, mongooses, and heaven forbid brown tree snakes that they may feed.

I have nothing per se against snakes. Little garter snakes would be kind of nice. Nothing about brown tree snakes is nice.

[rbakker]

I googled brown tree snakes on Guam ( http://www.fort.usgs.gov/Resources/Education/BTS/ ) :
"Snakes caused the extirpation of most of the native forest vertebrate species; thousands of power outages affecting private, commercial, and military activities; widespread loss of domestic birds and pets; and considerable emotional trauma to residents and visitors alike when snakes invaded human habitats with the potential for severe envenomation of small children."

and

"Since Guam is a major transportation hub in the Pacific, numerous opportunities exist for the brown Treesnakes on Guam to be introduced accidentally to other Pacific islands as passive stowaways in ship and air traffic from Guam."

Uh-oh. I'll keep a look out when I'm hunting coquis.

[Devany]

Wow... that sounds like a nasty snake. Aren't the Mongoose there to kill all the snakes? In Fiji there are no snakes, no birds either. Lots of Mongoose though. And there are fruit bats the size of cats.

Aloha au i Hawai`i,
devany

Devany Vickery-Davidson
East Bay Potters
www.eastbaypotters.com

[MarkP]

The thing about brown tree snakes is that they are such survivors. Females can mate once and remain fertile for a long time, so you don't even need a matched pair to get things started. They are mildly venemous, not really dangerous to adults but in the large numbers that exist in Guam, really hungry because they have killed off all the small prey items, they have actually been found trying to swallow infants finger first. Naturally they don't get far but unless you hear the baby crying the snake can be chewing on the baby's finger long enough to deliver a substantial amount of poison. I would freak if I found a snake chewing on my baby.

Several live brown tree snakes have been found over the years on Wheeler Army Airfield and Hickam for example, where they had gotten by stowing away in military cargo. I recall one account where someone walking along the fence line spotted the snake crawling through and killed it. I can only imagine that for every snake found there must have been several that got through unnoticed. Still, at the moment there are no known populations of brown tree snakes in Hawaii. Maybe the mongooses are killing them. Mongooses are diurnal while rats and brown tree snakes are nocturnal. Mongooses do still exert pressure on rats by catching them in their nests so I would expect the same for snakes.

[rbakker]

If you search for "coqui hawaii" in Google, top of the list is Mr Singer's site, which compares anti-coqui scientists to Nazis.
I wonder if he is preparing a similar site for the brown tree snakes?

[bystander]

I don't know if this is just fear mongering but I read this article in WHT.

http://www.westhawaiitoday.com/articles/...ocal02.txt

quote:

---

Mark Munekata, a former biological technician with the U.S. Department of Agriculture who is working with the Hawaii Economic Development Board on the coqui problem, said this week the frogs have started to eat honey bees and geckos, and may soon set their sights on the endangered picture-wing fly.

---

[gtill]

Mabe someone could get a long running tape of their sounds and play it back to them all day everyday at their volume, mabe they will reply all day, and after a week of steady singing will all die of exhaustion.