[ OUR OPINION ]
FILE PHOTO
Puerto Ricans love its nocturnal call, but tiny Eleutherodactylus coqui's 100-decibel shriek is jangling the nerves of Hawaii residents.
Puerto Ricans, please
come and rescue
your frogsPUERTO Ricans love their coqui frogs but have been unsuccessful in keeping them plentiful in recent years. The thumb-sized frogs, unwelcome visitors to Hawaii for the past decade, are so threatened by commercial development in their homeland that the Puerto Rican government has reportedly asked that they be allowed to thrive here. The request is based on ecological ignorance and should not be taken seriously.
THE ISSUE Puerto Rico's government is trying to persuade Hawaii to spare the coqui frogs that have permeated Hawaii.
Hawaii has some experience with species threatened with extinction: More than one-third of those on the U.S. endangered-species list are native to Hawaii. None of those are frogs, because Hawaii has no native amphibians. It also has none of the predators, competitors or diseases needed to keep amphibian populations at an acceptable level. The coquis are believed to have been brought to Hawaii with shipments of plants.
Meanwhile, many Hawaii residents are losing sleep over the problem, kept awake by frogs screeching "ko-KEE" over and over at power-mower levels. Some residents are reported to have tried to set their lawns on fire to combat encroaching frogs. Puerto Ricans love their coqui frogs (they come in 16 varieties) and regard their ko-KEEing as melodious, but most Hawaii residents who have heard them hate them.
If Puerto Ricans so desperately want to save their coquis from chemical warfare, they should consider this modest proposal: Come to Hawaii and rescue them. Frogs can be caught. A Big Island man recently promised children in his neighborhood $5 for each coqui that they could catch, and he ended up paying them $350.
The coqui rescue brigade could find even greater success if it were commandeered by Richard Thomas, a University of Puerto Rico zoologist who has perfected a whistle that blows the frogs' cover by setting them ko-KEEing. Soldiers could quickly throw a net around each ko-KEEing frog. If the brigade likes, a Hawaii musical group has recorded "Serenata de el Coqui" to romance the frogs into submission.
"I like the animals, and I hate to see them go," Thomas says. He adds that as Puerto Rican developers build "more and more malls and resorts along the coast and grind up more of the limestone hills, who knows what's in store."
Tests are now being conducted on Maui and the Big Island to determine if spraying caffeine-laced water on areas is effective in killing frogs, with no significant collateral damage. If the experiments are successful, $200,000 will be made available by the federal government for further warfare and research after October.
That doesn't give Puerto Rican protectors of the frog long to assemble a brigade and make hotel reservations in Hawaii. They can expect to be greeted with the aloha that has been denied their frogs.
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