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01/21/2004
Tiny Frogs' Timid Calls
Of all the places I’ve been, my favorite remains any of the
islands of Hawaii. They’ve always seemed to me the perfect
place to relax and I love the strains of that old style Hawaiian
music. Unfortunately, the Sandwich Isles are succumbing to the
wayward ways of the mainland. Last week, my friend Dan in
Honolulu informed me of a shootout between rival groups
providing “protection” for illegal gambling houses. The conflict
resulted in the killing of two individuals in a golf club’s parking
lot of all places. For many residents of Hawaii, while
troublesome, such incidents are not nearly as disturbing as the
invasion of an alien species from Puerto Rico.
It’s hard to believe that a tiny frog could be the source of such
widespread concern. When one reads about frogs these days, it’s
usually in connection with frogs dying out and/or being born
with grotesquely malformed or misplaced limbs. The frog has
been cited as the environmental equivalent of the canary in the
coal mine warning of imminent danger. Back in the early 1940s,
it was standard practice for us students in high school biology
classes to dissect a frog. In those days I don’t think we even
knew the term “environment” and there must have been hundreds
of thousands of frogs sacrificed for dissection. In my case, the
experience put aside any desire to become a surgeon or
pathologist! Today, the concern is that the declining frog
populations around the globe are harbingers of more serious
consequences due to global warming, chemical pollution or some
other environmental factor.
According to my 1962 World Book Encyclopedia, there are
about 2000 kinds of frogs ranging in size from a half-inch to a
foot in length. Their eyes resemble our own but the pupils don’t
expand or dilate as ours do. Some frogs change color to fit the
circumstances. Frogs may also change their attire, pulling their
old skin over their heads and in many cases eating it. That’s
recycling carried to an extreme!
As kids, we would catch tadpoles in local streams or ponds and
bring them home to put in fishbowls, hoping to watch them turn
into frogs. However, I never succeeded in nurturing the tadpoles
properly and they passed away before they achieved frog status.
In spite of my own lack of success, I’ve assumed that all frogs
went through a life cycle involving a stage as a tadpole. Last
week I found that I was mistaken. My enlightenment came in an
article by Rita Beamish in the January 2004 issue of Smithsonian
magazine.
The article, titled “Sleepless in Hawaii”, deals with the alien frog
that has invaded Hawaii and spurred me to read more about
frogs, especially the coqui. In the process, I found a good
illustration of the difficulty facing us when we try to do good for
the environment. What’s good in the eyes of some may be
reprehensible to others. What follows has been gleaned from the
article and from visits to the University of Hawaii, the
welcome.topuertorico.org and the Honolulu Star Bulletin Web
sites.
Let’s look at Eleutherodactylus coqui, known more generally as
simply coqui, little frog, in its native Puerto Rico. Coqui has a
number of characteristics that set it apart from most other frog
species. It’s not a swimmer but does prefer moist, lush wooded
areas. If it doesn’t swim how does it develop from the tadpole
stage? It doesn’t. The coqui is born a little froglet, about the
size of a grain or two of rice. There are more than 16 different
species of coqui living in Puerto Rico. One variety of coqui
grows to only the size of a quarter as an adult and it’s this critter
that has invaded Hawaii.
Another feature of the coqui is that, since it doesn’t swim, it has
no need for webbing between its toes, which may have little
suction cups on their ends. But the characteristic that truly
defines the coqui in Hawaii is the call of the male coqui. You
can hear that call if you visit the above mentioned welcome to
Puerto Rico Web site. The coqui’s call reminded me of an
innovative mockingbird in our neighborhood here in New Jersey.
The welcome site states that the male coqui “enlivens the
evenings with its timid ‘ko-kee’ from which it gets its name.”
But the male also likes to “sing” all night.
Here in suburban Jersey, our summer nights are filled with the
sounds of crickets and other insects, perhaps even some little
frogs. It’s a rather steady low-level background noise that puts
me to sleep. The problem is that mockingbird, which keeps
innovating and hardly ever repeats the same tune. As a result, I
lie awake wondering what he’s going to come up with next. Like
the coqui, my mockingbird is a nocturnal creature that sings at all
hours of the night.
I can empathize with the residents of Hawaii, where the coqui
arrived via plane or boat, probably stowed away in some nursery
plants. Hawaii has a plethora of different climatic conditions
ranging from extremely dry to extremely wet. The coqui took
quickly to the moist forests, hitched rides and spread to the other
islands. Without the snakes, tarantulas and scorpions that feed
on coquis and control their population in Puerto Rico, the coqui
prospered and multiplied. That “timid ko-kee” became a
screeching sound in the 70 to 90 decibel range, equivalent to a
vacuum cleaner in action. Repeated exposure to a level of 85
decibels in the workplace would prompt implementation of ear
protection under federal guidelines.
My friend Dan likens the sound of a bevy of coquis to the rat-tat-
tat of hundreds of machine guns going off all at once, not very
loud but steady. The calls of multitudes these little frogs calling
out for mates has led the inhabitants of the state of the hula and
the luau to take drastic measures to eliminate or control the
coqui. The situation has gotten so bad that real estate deals fall
through when prospective buyers find that the coquis are in the
area around their prospective home.
In some areas, especially on the Big Island of Hawaii, the density
of coquis is more than 4 or 5 times that in Puerto Rico. With so
many coquis, there’s also concern that the coquis will devour
most of the native insects that provide food for the dwindling
populations of Hawaii’s colorful birds. In turn, there’s the
possibility that, if certain snakes also find their way to Hawaii,
the snakes will feast on the coquis and themselves multiply out
of control.
But environmental issues are complex, as is evident from an
article printed in the Honolulu star Bulletin on June 12 last year.
The article is headlined “(US) Puerto Rico sues to protect the
Coqui”! It seems that two groups, the Puerto Rico-based
Maunabo Development Committee and the Center for Biological
Diversity, based in Arizona, filed suit in the U. S. District Court
in Washington charging that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
hadn’t drafted a plan to address the dwindling coqui population
in Puerto Rico. The lawsuit targets the rock coqui, not the coqui
haunting the nights on Hawaii. The Puerto Ricans love their
coquis and the Puerto Rican government reportedly has lobbied
Hawaii to cease its war on the coquis that have emigrated from
their native habitat.
If you visit Hawaii and decide that you side with those fighting
the coqui, you might want to help out by catching some of the
little buggers by hand. If you do catch any, the University of
Hawaii offers tips on disposing of your catch “humanely”. You
can freeze it for at least three hours or, if you’re the impatient
type, you can immerse it in very hot soapy water. If catching the
little guys is not your bag, you can spray the area with citric acid.
You didn’t bring your sprayer? You can borrow one from the
Hawaii Department of Agriculture. It certainly appears that the
authorities in Hawaii are fully supportive of the effort to silence
that “timid” call of the coqui!
Allen F. Bortrum
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