When the Coqui tree frog was first found in Hawai’i eight years ago, it was viewed as a cute oddity. The amphibian, introduced from Puerto Rico, grows to two inches long, has big eyes and small feet and chirps like
When the Coqui tree frog was first found in Hawai’i eight years ago, it was viewed as a cute oddity.
The amphibian, introduced from Puerto Rico, grows to two inches long, has big eyes and small feet and chirps like a bird.
In Hawai’i, the frog has multiplied by the thousands, first colonizing Big Island and then Maui and O’ahu. Kaua’i appears to be next.
Whether the frog survives in the state will depend on what government agencies and a Big Island organization have to say about its future.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Geological Survey and the state Department of Agriculture have branded the frog a menace and a threat to birds, spiders and insects in forests. Officials are drawing up plans to exerminate the Coqui.
But an organization on Big Island that wants to save the frogs says the tiny critters are harmless, aren’t noisy and won’t compete aggressively with birds for insects.
At stake, government officials say, is the future of hundreds of native birds and spiders whose population could be decimated because its food source, insects, will be taken away by the frog.
The frogs are usually found in the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The were first seen in Hawai’i eight years ago, brought here by airplane.
The largest number in Hawai’i are on Maui, where they’ve been found at 30 locations. They’re also known to exist at 11 sites on Big Island and one on O’ahu. The largest concentration is found at Lava Tree State Park on Big Island.
On Kaua’i, some of the frogs have been found in Po’ipu and Hanalei, but there may be more because people may not have reported them, according to Nilton Matayoshi, an official with the state Department of Agriculture.
Although they are establishing themselves, the frogs aren’t a menace, said Sydney Ross Singer of the Big Island-based Institute for the Study of Culturogenic Disease. The group’s goal is to stop “misinformation” about the frogs and to protect them from eradication, he said.
Singer said the frogs chirp like a bird, are non-threatening to insects and other wildlife, and are “a national symbol of Puerto Rico.”
He said environmental groups in Hawai’i, fed one-sided information about the frog by the government, have “bought the line that it is necessary to kill the frog, because they have this unrealistic, idealistic vision of Hawai’i as a pure ecosystem. It isn’t. Sugar, bananas, geckos, hibiscus plants, lei flowers are alien and have been imported.”
The state should welcome another species that pose no threat to its ecosystem, Singer said.
The frog, like other alien species, doesn’t belong in Hawai’i, said Philip Thomas, a biologist with the Hawaiian Ecosystems at Risk project on Maui, which is sponsored by the U.S. Geological Survey.
“It will mean losing the plants and animals that are unique to Hawai’i,” Thomas said of the Coqui’s presence. “We want to keep the Hawaiian habitat pure by keeping invasive species out.”
But it would be a mistake to pursue extermination of the Coqui, Singer said.
“The state has tried to eradicate the mongoose, rats and miconia weed, but they are still around,” Singer said. “So what makes them think that they can eradicate the Coqui frog?”
Thomas said the frogs belong on their home island, Puerto Rico. But Singer said Hawai’i is the only place where the government is taking aim to eliminate the frogs.
Pending eradication plans have sparked letters of protest to Hawai’i from Puerto Rico’s non-voting member of Congress, Singer said.
Efforts to eradicate or control the frog population must be made before the frog becomes a problem across the state, Matayoshi said. Left unchecked, a frog colony can grow to a density of 10,000 per acre, he said.
Right now, control measures amount to people collecting the frogs and disposing of them.
Federal and state officials may poison, possibly a concentrated form of caffeine, to eradicate the frogs, Matayoshi said. The poison must be approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
According to Singer, chemical eradicate of the frogs could also result in killing off a much-beloved lizard in Hawaii: The gecko.
Matayoshi said the frog, with its noise that some describe as a “shriek,” has become an irritant to humans wherever it settles. Property owners reportedly have complained that the presence of the frogs drives down property values.
Singer said there is “no problem with the frogs, only an attitude problem” among people.
Staff writer Lester Chang can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) and mailto:lchang@pulitzer.net
