Kauai mobilizes
to hunt for snake

Crews scrutinize areas around
the airport after a sighting

LIHUE » State workers are searching for a 4-foot-long brown snake near Lihue Airport and surrounding former sugar cane fields this week after a "credible sighting," officials said yesterday.

A 16-year-old girl from California saw the snake Monday afternoon as she and her family left Lihue Airport. They first reported the snake to hotel workers that night after the girl's father told her, "There are no snakes in Hawaii," said Deborah Ward, public information officer for the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

Asked if it could be a brown tree snake, Jackie Kozak, the outreach relations specialist at the Kauai Invasive Species Committee, said she is not ruling it out, but noted, "There are many possibilities for that description."

In March, traps could not capture a 3-foot brown snake spotted in a Kona Palisades back yard. Last year, searchers and traps could not catch a 3-foot snake seen slithering on Hana Road on Maui.

The brown tree snake has devastated Guam's native bird, lizard and even bat populations, and has caused power failures.

State officials created the Kauai Invasive Species Committee in 2003 and other agencies on other islands to combat invasive species such as snakes and coqui frogs.

Committee officials were contacted Tuesday and interviewed the girl about the snake, described as slender, light brown and about 4 feet long. A response team was dispatched less than an hour after the interview with the girl was concluded, said Karen Gundersen, committee project coordinator.

On Wednesday the team of 17 people, from the Department of Land and Natural Resources, the state and federal departments of Agriculture, the Department of Transportation and the Kauai Invasive Species Committee, searched the airport property and surrounding fields, Kozak said.

Some of those in the group have been trained to capture snakes as part of the DLNR Guam brown tree snake training.

Yesterday, a 14-member team searched the area unsuccessfully. The search is expected to continue at least through the weekend and could stop next week if no further information is found, Ward said.

At least 30 traps using dead mice and other bait were put out along the perimeter of the airport, and state transportation workers cut lanes through the tall grass and scrub that surround the airport property to allow access and create a perimeter for searchers.

Gutters and drains were also flushed yesterday, producing a lot of cane toads but nothing else.

"It's a rarity" to get a snake report on Kauai, Kozak said. "When a sighting is credible, we take it very seriously."

The last snake found on Kauai was in March 2003, when a 4-foot-long gopher snake was run over and captured on Kuhio Highway, roughly about a mile and a half away from the current site, Gundersen said.

Snake reports can be made to the Pest Hotline, 586-PEST (7378), and captive snakes can be surrendered to the Department of Agriculture under the state's amnesty program.