Where have all the birdies gone? (When will we ever learn?)

One would think we would be surrounded by flocks of tropical birds. Sea birds should abound here. But in reality we see only a few sparrow-like birds picking up picnic droppings off the beach and really, little else. A sighting is rare. Sitting out on the back deck here in the town of Waimea, we're surrounded by tropical plants and trees, yet we see far fewer birds than in our snow-covered cedar hedges in Aurora.

What went wrong?
Most of the mammals on the island of Hawaii are feral species; they are not native. One, the seemingly innocent Indian Mongoose, is as prevalent here as the black squirrel is in Toronto's High Park.

In 1872, W.B. Espeut, a sugar plantation owner in Jamaica, got the idea to introduce the mongoose there in order to keep his rat problem under control. He sailed from Jamaica to Calcutta on a ship aptly called the Merchantman, captured four male and five female mongooses and brought them back across the ocean to Jamaica.

Twenty years later, in a journal article, the enterprising Espeut claimed he was very successful, thereby creating a new Jamaican export for himself. Selling mongooses! When the article reached the sugar cane plantations of Hawaii, the farmers saw an answer to their rat problems. So despite some local dissent, in 1883, the Hawaiian farmers ordered 72 mongooses from the Jamaican. The mongooses were raised on the Big Island and spread amongst the islands. Little did they know or maybe, even worse, they didn't care...

Imagine, He Lied.
Contrary to Mr. Espeut's claims, Mongooses kill very few rats. Unlike the nocturnal rat, the mongoose is diurnal; they are active during the day! And you can't eat what you don't see. So instead of ridding the islands of night-time rats, the day-time mongooses have found many alternative foodstuff. Only the islands of Lana'i and Kaua'i remained mongoose-free, but on the other islands, the introduction of the little creature has been a disaster of epic proportions.

Over Easy or Scrambled?
Among many other delicacies, they loved the plentiful bounty of the local bird eggs. Mongooses love eggs. They throw the eggs against rocks to break them open and then eat them. The mongooses have preyed on not just the eggs but also fledgling and adult native Hawaiian birds, not to mention endangered sea turtle eggs and hatchlings. Within decades the bird population of the Big Island, Oahu, and Maui were devastated. Of course, other human causes such as logging and farming caused loss of habitat and diseases introduced to the islands have also played a part.

Endangered Species
The Hawaiian Islands can be called the endangered species capital of the world - Hawaii has more native endangered species per square mile than anywhere else on the planet. Of the 71 native bird species, 23 are extinct, and 30 are endangered or threatened. The native state bird, the Nene, (an obvious cousin of the Canada goose) had it's population devastated and reduced to about 30 birds on the big Island at one time. Their population has now been protected, reintroduced, and grown but only in significant numbers on the mongoose-free islands.

If one wants to see flocks of tropical birds, you have to head to the island of Kauai where, I am told, the difference is staggering.

Most birds are Ha'ole, like us
The colourful Brazilian red breasted cardinal which can be seen in various areas around the island is a 1930's introduction and although interesting, like so many of the other recent additions, is not native to Hawai'i.

More species of birds have been introduced here than anywhere else on earth - at least 142 species of birds, from six continents since 1850, many to replace the devastated native populations. Around 54 of these introduced species have established breeding populations on the islands. But they survive only in small numbers and even then mostly only in secluded, little publicized, bird sanctuaries around the islands.

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