Monthly Archives: August 2015

The Mongoose is Loose

4 Replies

Since the 1880’s, the Big Island has been home to the Small Asian Mongoose; a native of India.  They were brought here by owners of sugar cane plantations who were having problems with another invasive species; the rat.  Rats follow humans wherever we go and found their way to Hawaii as soon as someone showed up in a ship big enough for them to hide in.  The rat is a pest for many agricultural activities and the plantation owners were looking for a solution.

When they heard that some guy in Jamaica had success controlling rats by releasing a bunch of mongooses, they got some of their own.  It seemed to make sense.  The mongoose is a speedy predator and could make quick work of a lowly rat.  Just look at that face; he’s a killer alright.

IMG_1594

Unfortunately the great benefit they heard about was sorely overstated.  The mongoose does its hunting during the day to take advantage of its high visual acuity.  The lowly rat, meanwhile, does most of its feeding and scurrying around during the night to take advantage of its night vision and superior sense of smell and touch.  So while the mongoose may be willing and able to kill a rat, the chances of them running into each other is pretty low.  Each is sleeping while the other is feeding.

Instead of eating all the rats, the mongooses went for any number of other prey including ground-nesting birds.  They may not have ate as many rats as hoped, but they sure did breed like them.  130 years later, the island is stuck with hoards of mongooses and the state bird is a threatened species.

We humans seem to have a knack for creating a problem and then making it worse because we jumped on a solution that sounded right without checking to see if it would really help.

Big Island Base Camp

Leave a reply

The company has put my coworker and I up in a rental property while we work the Big Island.  It’s a nice place 20 minutes or so from Hilo.  There’s an ocean view, but I can’t take a good picture right now with the sunrise.

IMG_1570

We are just two little blocks from the ocean.  But the coast is not exactly “beach-like” on this corner of the island.  Sharp basalt boulders don’t mix well with waves and human bodies, so I shall swim elsewhere.

IMG_1564

Being on the rain forest side means it’s usually raining by mid afternoon.  But it also means the forest is lush with all kinds of vegetation I can’t even begin to identify, save for the ones with fruit I recognize.  Coconut palms are everywhere and there’s even a new one growing from its over-sized seed on the edge of the yard.  This picture also has bamboo and a young banana tree in it so I guess I know more than I thought.

IMG_1571

I mentioned a tropical storm in my last post.  Hilda fizzled into a non-event, as predicted, producing only some nuisance rain as far as I was concerned.  I took it in stride and went to the movies while Hilda’s remnants staggered ashore.

Jake B’s Hawaiian Adventure

1 Reply

So long Alaska, hello Hawaii.  Or “aloha”, I suppose.

Yes, it seems my whirlwind of cool places has brought me to The Big Island out here in Hawaii.   It’s the same old job on the work end, but the severe change in latitude and longitude has taken me from the subtropical evergreen forests of southeast Alaska to an actual rain forest on the southeast end of the Big Island.

Already I have seen some of the stark contrasts this island has to offer.  The thick vegetation of the jungle sudden breaks into the cracked and crumpled starkness of a basalt lava flow younger than myself.

IMG_1543

This moonscape is in turn broken by the brilliant azure of the Pacific Ocean where 10 foot waves thunder into the jagged shore.

IMG_1556

The house I am staying in for the next month has no A/C so the open windows let in the chorus of insects and the invasive Coqui Frog.  Though the frogs are considered a nuisance by local standards, I find the calls soothing when combined with the drone of a fan.  Just like a warm spring night in northern Wisconsin.

Hawaii does have a lot of problems with invasive species, however, and I’ll probably touch on that some more in the future.

Meanwhile, I should mention that there is this weak hurricane slowly making its way toward Hawaii.

Hilda 10Aug15 2100

But by the time Hilda brushes up against this island it will barely be able to muster the title of “Tropical Storm”; if that.  There’s a lot of upper-level wind shear that will smack it down in the next two days and it will only be a gusty rain event when it gets here.  It has produced some cool surf on this side of the island.  Expect some more content related to this little weather event in the next few days.