We must not let tiny shrieking monsters destroy Hawaii

I AUTHOR and publish the "Driving and Discovering Hawaii" series of guidebooks, so a healthy Hawaii tourist industry and a robust Hawaii economy are subjects near and dear to my heart, and my pocketbook.

The Hawaii Superferry has engendered all kinds of discussion, especially in terms of how it will encourage intrastate tourism, with our newfound ability to pack up the old VW camper and the keiki and the dogs and be off to Maui or Kauai for a weeklong adventure.

This new freedom will without a doubt transport the extremely tiny and damaging coqui frog to all the islands the Superferry serves. Any public servant who claims the opposite, or says the Department of Agriculture can stop coqui stowaways, has no knowledge of this diabolical little creature whatsoever.

The coqui frog is the worst threat ever to tourism and the state's overall economic health. Like the slowly moving lava that crept unchallenged along the terrain to devour the community of Kalapana, the coqui spreads by the millions to infest new areas of the Big Island daily. Unlike in its homeland of Puerto Rico, the coqui has no natural enemies in Hawaii. Possessing an almost unfathomable rate of reproduction, this pest spreads like wildfire.

MY EXTENSIVE wanderings over my home island to work on my newest guidebook for the Big Island have revealed how extensive and disastrous the coqui infestation is. In Pahoa town, the sound is indescribable both in volume and scope. With tens of thousands of frogs screaming all at once, the combined noise is electronic in nature, recalling a sound effect heard in cheesy 1950s science fiction movies. Only colossally louder.

Preposterously and insultingly, the Big Island government expects residents to perform the impossibly gargantuan travail of eliminating what could -- and should -- have been prevented by government to begin with. There was ample warning about the coqui frog invasion from experts that not only was unheeded by both the county and state governments, but was actually laughed off.

On an island as large as Connecticut, with vast areas of rugged wilderness and boundless agricultural lands, no citizen army, no matter how enthusiastic or well equipped, could possibly make a dent. Indenturing the citizenry to do a job that timely government action should have made unnecessary is terrible enough. But expecting single mothers, kids, the elderly, the sick and the infirm to skulk around in the middle of nowhere in the black of night with giant sprayers lashed to their backs on an island riddled with gaping, hidden crevasses in the earth is simply ludicrous.

THE BIG ISLAND real estate industry certainly doesn't want you to know this, so I'll break the news: The real estate market on the Big Island lags far behind that of the other Hawaiian islands because of the coqui infestation. My oceanfront neighborhood, which has a large number of vacation rental homes, is relatively coqui-free because we have a strong legion of neighbors who go out and attempt to eliminate the mini-monsters regularly. Yet despite our grassroots efforts, vacation rental owners here have experienced numerous desertions from visitors who could not rest or sleep due to the screams of but a single coqui, and who demanded their money back so they could spend the remainder of their holiday on a different island. If one coqui drives visitors away, imagine what millions will do.

Big Island visitors shopping for local real estate quickly change their minds when they return to their favored property after sunset to hear a racket that will wreak havoc on quality of life and peace of mind. Nobody now living here in an as-yet coqui-free zone wishes to move to what we call CDZs, Coqui Disaster Zones, no matter how pretty the scenery or how much of an improvement the new house is.

As this problem increases, outside money will continue to dry up. Potential malihini will choose other places to relocate or retire to. Visitors will go elsewhere. Homes will go unsold. There are currently 167 unsold homes in the subdivision of Hawaiian Paradise Park in Keaau alone. HPP is infested with coqui, and with four out of five lot owners absentee and their lots heavily wooded, there's no way for residents to fight the invasion.

What those of us on the Big Island are now living is unquestionably the future for the entire state, unless Gov. Linda Lingle mobilizes an effort to eradicate the coqui infestation.

Those who might scoff at the idea that the governor should proclaim the Big Island a disaster area so we can qualify for federal funds have no inkling of what lies ahead, in economic or human cost, either for the Big Island or Hawaii as a whole.

IT IS NO SURPRISE that kamaaina on other islands don't realize the enormity or scope of this infestation. State government and the tourism industry certainly don't want potential visitors and investors to know about this looming disaster.

Five years down the line, Hawaii residents will be Monday-morning quarterbacking, scratching their heads and wondering how this could have happened. It happened because people when warned were too preoccupied with other things to prevent a great tragedy.

It seems to pain some kamaaina to acknowledge that tourism is indeed the reason why we enjoy such a high standard of living and quality of life. Hawaii has never been proactive in attracting tourists. We are the very lucky beneficiaries of word-of-mouth publicity, unlike destinations like Jamaica, which have to spend huge amounts per capita to attract visitors. That same word of mouth that has brought us a quality of life that is envied the world over can just as easily work against us. And "coqui" is a very bad word.

I call upon Lingle to see this for what it is: an economic disaster of gargantuan proportions in the making for the Big Island and the rest of the state, unless action is taken immediately.

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