THE STATE OF ALOHA
Years ago, I went for a run in the heat of the day. It’s one of my favorite routes in Peahi. The road meanders through steep valleys and hills around Five Corners. On a lonesome stretch of the road, it came out of the bushes into the open and in the sun.
It was sleek, fast and low to the ground. It stopped to look around and noticed me coming slowly toward it. There was still some distance between us. After hesitating a moment, it stopped and stood its ground. It flashed its sharp little teeth and seemed ready to attack. It didn’t last long. By the time I got close enough for it to realize it was no match for something exponentially bigger, it scurried off into the brush.
I know it’s wrong, but I admire the mongoose.
The mongoose was introduced by sugar cane planters more than 130 years ago. Rats and mice have a sweet tooth. On Hawaii island, planters were sick of them getting into molasses and raw sugar.
In 1883, sugar planters on the Hamakua Coast introduced mongooses from Jamaica thinking they would kill off the rats and mice.
While I’m at it, here’s a word about the word mongoose. It was inherited from the languages of India. In classical Hindi, the creature is called the “mungus” or “mangus.” The Anglicized version of the word — mongoose — first appeared in 1673. The plural form of mongoose is mongooses. That’s because it has nothing to do with geese.
The mongoose had its defenders at first. Joseph Marsden was a businessman and bureaucrat during the last days of Hawaiian kingdom and the provisional government run by those who overthrew the kingdom. He is believed to be the moving force behind the introduction of the mongoose to the islands.
For that he earned the nickname Mongoose Joe and despite evidence to the contrary, he was an unwavering supporter of the mongoose as a force of good when it came to getting rid of rats and mice. Mongoose Joe would later leave the islands and died of a heart attack in California.
By the time of his death in 1909, it was unclear if the mongoose helped. Newspapers at the turn of the century claimed that the cane fields were cleared of rat and mice populations and praised the mongoose.
But mongooses are diurnal, meaning they sleep at night and go about their business during the daytime. Rats and mice, as most folks know, are nocturnal. Nevertheless, conventional wisdom at the time — something that with time seems less conventional and certainly less wise — credited the mongoose for saving the sugar cane crop.
The mongoose love didn’t last long. Mongooses ate more than mice. In 1911, residents in Kaimuki on Oahu complained to newspapers about eggs being stolen by mongooses. They snack on lizards too. And lizards snack on ticks and insects. This caused an uptick in ticks.
And then there are the birds. Mongooses ate their eggs and killed almost entire species of rare and endemic birds. It is believed that they are behind the destruction of the Native Hawaiian crow and the decimation of the nene goose (a real goose) and petrel population.
When the government in Samoa considered introducing mongooses to take on its rat population, letters from Hawaii cautioned against it. By the 1920s the now Territory of Hawaii lamented at the introduction of the sleek and fierce mongoose.
The population of the mongoose is out of control on most islands. Kauai and Lanai are the exception. They have never been introduced in large numbers there. The Hawaii Invasive Species Council hopes to keep it that way.
In fact, folks breeding or keeping mongooses on Lanai or Kauai face stiff penalties and fines. And if you see one on those islands, you’re encouraged to report it to the HISC at (808) 643PEST (7378) or at 643pest.org.
Despite the damage it has caused, I can’t help but think of the mongoose as a ferocious and fearless fighter. Yes, I know they have wreaked havoc here. Yes, we must do all we can to stop them from invading Kauai and Lanai. But the mongoose is ours now, like it or not.