A six-day search for a snake reportedly spotted a week ago at the entrance to Lihu‘e Airport was called off Monday. Kauai Invasive Species Committee coordinator and search member Keren Gundersen said the 45 traps which had been put out
A six-day search for a snake reportedly spotted a week ago at the entrance to Lihu‘e Airport was called off Monday.
Kauai Invasive Species Committee coordinator and search member Keren Gundersen said the 45 traps which had been put out were pulled Monday.
“There were no snake signs, no confirmed reports, but we’ll stay on the alert,” she said.
Gundersen said she received a call the snake might have come from the Wailua area. Despite being erroneous, she said all tips are taken seriously in this kind of matter.
Snakes are not native to Hawai‘i and pose a serious threat to bird life and local habitat.
Gundersen said the search covered about seven acres, virtually all of it in the gateway entrance to the Lihu’e Airport.
After a sixteen-year-old visitor from California reported seeing a slender, light-brown, about four-foot-long snake Aug. 1 on the pavement near the waterfall feature at the entrance to the airport, a multi-state agency “rapid-response team” made up of federal and state agencies, and community representatives, began searching for the snake at Lihu‘e Airport and surrounding areas.
Gundersen said a snake sighting any time is a top priority.
Wiliwili tree threat
In another matter, according to a report Monday by the Associated Press (AP), the Erythrina gall wasp, a tiny species of wasp that scientists only identified last year, is invading the islands and threatening to kill off the native wiliwili tree.
The wasp has also been discovered damaging trees on Kaua‘i, Maui and the Kona side of the Big Island in the past few weeks.
Gundersen acknowledged that the Erythrina gall wasp was present on Kaua‘i, but had been confined to one tree, again, in the vicinity of the Lihu‘e Airport and was being treated by the state Department of Agriculture.
Since scientists found the tiny wasps on O‘ahu in April, it has left an unsightly trail of defoliation among the wiliwili trees and red-flowering Indian coral trees on the island.
The wasp is a grave threat to the native wiliwili, a species mentioned in the ancient creation chant, the Kumulipo, according to the AP. The native wiliwili is also used to craft surfboards, canoe outriggers, and fish net floats.
Officials here suspect it made its way to Hawai‘i in a shipment from Taiwan.
