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Caffeine might
quiet noisy
Big Island frogs

Pure caffeine may cause
cardiac failure; snakes also
threaten Hawaii

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By Pat Gee
Star-Bulletin

Drink too much coffee, and you might not be able to fall asleep at night. But seven strong cups of coffee might be the only way to quiet the tree frogs that are keeping Big Islanders up all night with their noisy mating calls.

It would take that much caffeine to put a tree frog to sleep for good, says Earl Campbell III of the National Wildlife Research Center in Hilo.

The frog population has grown dramatically since it was introduced on the Big Island in 1997, and it serves as a warning.

"People were warned of the frog problem two years ago and did nothing," said Fred Kraus of the state Division of Forestry and Wildlife. "Now the frogs are everywhere. We have to deal with the snakes now that we have a chance, instead of waiting two, six, 10 years from now before it's too late,"

Both spoke at the eighth Hawaii Conservation Conference attended by more than 400 scientists, land managers, government officials and students yesterday and today at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. Sponsored by the Secretariat for Conservation Biology, the conference was held to discuss new and old threats to the environment.

Campbell said it is "darn tough" to kill "the rats of the frog world" that have invaded the Big Island and Maui in particular.

The state Department of Agriculture is testing a spray that would contain caffeine, "the only thing that worked" among the chemicals tried on the frogs. He surmised that the frogs died of cardiac failure.

But Campbell said he would not advise people to start spraying frogs in their back yard with strongly brewed coffee because straight caffeine was used in the lab tests, and coffee contains other elements.

Until the spray is available, he recommended capturing the frogs at night when they forage and mate.

Another way is to lure them to a trap with a recorded mating call, which is "pretty loud" at 70-80 decibels.

Referring to studies done two years ago, frogs had been spotted in six locations on the Big Island; now they are in 85.

On Maui, there were less than 15; now there are more than 30. On Oahu, they were found in one location, and now they are in four or five. And there were none on Kauai, but now they are in Poipu, Campbell said.

Kraus said legislators have to take more seriously the alarming invasion of the frogs, as well as the illegal snake population, and provide funding for the enforcement and capture of these species.

He warned that the brown tree snake, causing devastating problems on Guam, and other dangerous varieties could easily become established in Hawaii in spite of the state having the nation's "strictest agricultural laws."

Kraus said smuggling is easy because airport inspectors can't stop and search baggage unless they can show "good cause," and the mail is not subject to regular inspection.

He said the agriculture department should expand its stop-and-search abilities and use better technological devices, dog teams and X-ray machines.

The Agriculture Department should be given an enforcement arm with enough personnel and funding to make it effective instead of having to rely on other agencies to enforce the laws, Kraus recommended.

The public should also report snake sightings immediately to police instead of waiting sometimes weeks to report it, because a snake can disappear into the wild in minutes, he said.

People should also notify authorities of anyone possessing or smuggling snakes.