Thursday, April 26, 2012

Another County Council rant.

The last time I testified before the County Council, ten years ago, I was respectful and said this politely - but I WANTED to say "You idiots had better get off your fat asses and get rid of those #@!$^ Coqui frogs while there are only about a hundred of them - because they have no natural predators and they will evolve every 21 days until they get as big as pit bulls and take over the island."

All the dumbasses who came to talk stood up and said "Oh, my!  these are the sweet little songbirds of the night.  We can't kill them!"  And everyone sat and talked about it and did nothing. Now the things are as big as small Bufos in Puna.  They aren't benign, either.  They hunt.  I have seen them hunting geckoes and skinks.  Of course they don't eat mosquitoes, they just hunt things I like and want around my house.  And around my house, you could drive an M1 Abrams tank through the front door at night and no one would hear it over the Coquis.   

I got tired of trying to burn their little skins off with lemon juice and bicarb, or amping them up with caffeine.  I tried Clorox but it's too weak. I tried ammonia, chili peppers, mustard gas, brake cleaner, flame throwers, traps with speakers to call them in, vinegar, fertilizer, chickens.....

Nothing worked.  I have hearing loss and tinnitus at every frequency range EXCEPT the range of Coquis and sirens.  My hearing is enhanced at those frequencies.  So I finally had my beautiful, natural, plant-filled acre flattened with a D9 and I had about 500 yards of cinder spread. An entire mini-ecosystem that I loved to crawl around in.

Now there are only a few places they can hide.  So I go out at night with a CO2 BB gun and an LED headlamp and million candlepower light and I hunt the bastards down.   When I find one, I turn the big light on it.  That fries it's little eyeballs until I shoot it.  But I have more advanced weaponry.  I have a 1 watt UV laser.  The frog can't see the UV, and one second of that permanently destroys it's retinas.  Then it starts jumping, but it hits it's little head everywhere it jumps.  Still, it will eventually stop and start calling again, so even that doesn't work.  It was an expensive experiment....like the chlorine gas generator.


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