Second mongoose trapped on Kaua`i

In case there was a question about whether mongooses are established on the island, a second Kaua`i mongoose in under two months was trapped yesterday afternoon at Nawiliwili Harbor.

(Image: Young Brothers crew on Kaua`i with trapped mongoose. Credit: KISC.)

The first was trapped in May between Kaua`i Lagoons and the Lihue Airport. That was a large mature adult. Yesterday, employees at the Young Brothers terminal at Nawiliwili Harbor spotted one running between shipping containers—a little more than a mile from the first trapping.

Keren Gundersen of the Kaua`i Invasive Species Committee provided a blow-by-blow.

Young Brothers employees Nolan Fernandes, Keith Marugami, Jason Langtad, Wendell Kam managed to chase the mongoose under a shipping container. The Kaua`i Invasive Species Committee was called, and Joe Kona, Joseph Aguon-Kona, Mugs Kaneholani, Cleve Javier, Ray Kahaunaele and Gundersen responded with traps.

Local fisherman Jason Matsumoto, who was washing his boat at the Nawiliwili Small Boat Harbor nearby, loaned his hose and the animal was flushed out from under the container and it ran into a trap. Tests will be performed to determine the age of the animal.

Investigation revealed a report the night before that someone at the small boat harbor had been chasing a mongoose the night before.

Gundersen said her office continues to receive credible reports of mongoose sightings at locations around the island.

“We are trying to paint a more complete picture in regards to possible mongoose population numbers on Kaua`i. This way, it will be possible to move forward with plans for eradication and protection of high value areas like bird sanctuaries,” she said.

© Jan TenBruggencate 2012

Good news: Papahanaumokuakea is now number two.

The good news is that Hawai`i's Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument was established as the largest marine preserve of its kind in the world.

The other good news for global ocean conservation is that we've just become number two.

(Image: The complex array of marine protected areas around Australia. Credit: Commonwealth of Australia.)

Australia has announced a new no-take marine reserve in the Coral Sea, which covers a massive region of ocean. It takes in some existing protected ocean and adds more. The protected species include some of the same ones protected by Papahanaumokuakea, like the green sea turtle, many fish species, reefs, and seabirds.

A press release on the Australian announcement, from the Pew Environmental Group, is here. 

“The Coral Sea no-take marine reserve, known in Australia as a national park zone, would span 503,000 square kilometers (194,000 square miles) and will be the world’s second largest fully protected no-take marine reserve. This is part of a larger marine protected area in the Coral Sea, which is nearly 1 million square kilometers (386,100 square miles) in area,” Pew says.

By constrast, Papahanaumokuakea is 140,000 square miles. More on it, here.

Australia itself says it amounts to a big chunk of water: “Once proclaimed under Australia’s national environment law, the Coral Sea Commonwealth Marine Reserve will protect the waters of the Coral Sea that fall within Australia’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). This area covers approximately 989,842 square kilometres—which is more than half the size of Queensland.”

And for those with a more European geographical leaning, that's about the size of Spain. Here'sAustralia's proposal for the reserve. 

© Jan TenBruggencate 2012

Varroa mite kills honeybees two ways: Hawai'i research

Researchers studying honey bees in Hawai'i have found that the varroa mite, besides weakening and killing bees itself, also spreads a devastating bee-killing virus.

Indeed, in places where the mite has spread, infections of the deformed wing virus (DWV) have increased from being in 10% to 100% of the bees in infected hives.

An international team of researchers, including two from the University of Hawai'i, used the relatively new infestation of varroa mites in the Hawaiian Islands to study how the virus spreads along with the mite. Their work is in the June 8, 2012, issue of Science and the June 7 issue of Science Express.

In other parts of the world, the combination of the mite and the virus has led to colony death. That has also happened in Hawaii, but only after the mites have been in place for a long period to time--two years or more. Varroa mites are sucking pests that live off the blood of bees. They will often begin feeding on bees that are still in the larval stage.

The DWV can spread on its own, but is much more effectively spread by the mite, which can inject the virus directly into the bee's body.

The researchers also found that as the mites spread the virus, they have also played a role in the genetics of the virus, resulting in significantly lower viral diversity. In varroa-infected colonies, only a single strain of DWV is now dominant, they found.

The varroa mite is in all the state's major bee-farming islands except Kaua'i. A 2005 study by University of Pennsylvania Diana L. Cox-Foster and Xiaolong Yang found that varroa mite infestations reduce bees' immune response, making them more susceptible to infection.

Some reports indicate that in the absence of the mites, bee hives can sustain infection with DWV, but that instances of actually deformed bees increase when mites are present--perhaps because of the mite-induced reduced immune response.

There are signs of hope with regard to the mite, whose scientific name is Varroa destructor. Some strains of honeybees have a self-cleaning gene that causes them to groom the mites off themselves.

 And, researchers in both Great Britain and the United States are studying fungi that may help control varroa mites. A U.S. Department of Agriculture report on this is here: http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/oct04/bees1004.htm

 The Hawai'i mite-virus work paper is: "Global honey bee viral landscape altered by a parasitic mite," by Steven J. Martin and L. Brettell, University of Sheffield; A.C. Highfield and D.C. Schroeder, Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom; E.M. Villalobos and S. Nikaido, University of Hawai'i; G.E. Budge and M. Powell, Food and Environment Research Agency, York, UK.

© Jan TenBruggencate 2012

Mongooses and hive beetles, dark times for birds and bees

In a dark week for the birds and bees on Kaua`i, both mongooses and small hive beetles have been confirmed to be resident on the island.

Each is a serious pest with significant impacts on natural resources—the former to birds, and the latter to bees.

(Image: A blowup of a photo of the Kaua`i mongoose. Source: KISC.)
  

Invasive species specialists this week trapped an extraordinarily healthy male mongoose at the Kauai Lagoons area above Nawiliwili. An autopsy is planned, but the animal appeared large, fat and quite robust, said Keren Gunderson, project manager of the Kauai Invasive Species Committee (KISC).

A KISC press released reported that “a lactating female was discovered dead on Kaumuali`i Highway near Kalaheo in 1976, but none of the invasive animals have been found since then. However, there have been over 160 credible reports of sightings in the last 44 years, with over 70 in the last decade alone.”

Mongooses are serious predators, particularly of ground-nesting birds. At risk are our endangered waterbird species, including nene geese, ducks, gallinules, coots and stilts, but also barnyard birds, including chickens. (Some folks will cheer the possible impact on chickens, but the threatened loss of our healthy water bird populations is a major blow, since Kauai has been the last holdout for them.)

Other islands do have some of the native waterbirds, but in much smaller numbers than Kauai--likely in part because of mongoose predation.

The other new Kauai`i pest is the small hive beetle, a significant predator on honey bees. This small, brown-black beetle infests bee hives, and its larvae feed on bee honey and bee larvae.

Beekeepers noticed small beetles in hives during the past weekend and early this week and collected samples, which were submitted to the state Department of Agriculture for identification. The beetles are initially known to be at three separate locations.

“(Hawai`i Department of Agriculture) entomologists in Honolulu positively identified the submitted specimens as small hive beetle (Aethina tumida),” wrote Jacquie Robson, an apiary planner with the Hawai`i Department of Agriculture/RCUH Pacific Cooperative Studies Unit.

The small hive beetle is established on the other islands, where beekeepers must engage in time-consuming management activities to keep their numbers under control. Weak hives can be destroyed by the beetles.

The state Department of Agriculture was in the process of mapping infested hive locations, officials on Kaua`i said.

At risk are the island's small but growing honey industry, but more importantly the pollination services the bees provide to fruit, nut and vegetable growers, both backyard and commercial.

Since the animals are strong flyers, their spread across the island seems likely.

In the case of the mongooses, there have been numerous reports—increasing numbers since the trapping this week—at locations around the island. They’ve been reported from the south side of the island and the far north, and numerous points between.

It is too early to say categorically that they're established on the island, but the indications are not favorable for wildlife. The trapping of a healthy male, following a new flurry of mongoose sightings around the island, suggests the presence of a breeding population.

© Jan TenBruggencate 2012

Ships at sea could warn of tsunami: UH/PTWC researchers

Undersea sensors are a key tool to measuring tsunami traveling toward Hawai`i, but University of Hawai`i researchers found they are able to detect tsunami from on board ships.

Could that lead to critical new warning data from the hundreds of commercial ships regularly plying the Pacific? That’s possible, according to a study published this month.

(Image: The University of Hawaii research vessel Kilo Moana, which was at sea during the February 2010 Chile earthquake, and which was able to detect the tsunami as it passed under the ship. The Kilo Moana was underway between Hawai`i and Guam. Credit: SOEST/UHM.)

The study, published in the American Geophysical Union’s Geophysical Research Letters, was written by researchers from the University of Hawai`i’s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. The lead author is James Foster, an assistant researcher at SOEST. Co-authors are Benjamin A. Brooks, Glenn S. Carter and Mark A. Merrifield of SOEST and Dailin Wang of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

Kilo Moana was at sea when the magnitude 8.8 quake occurred. The ship was equipped with highly sensitive geodetic GPS technology. Tsunami waves are generally believed to be undetectable from ships in the deep sea, but can build and be intensely destructive as they move into shallow waters.

When the Chile quake’s tsunami passed under the ship, it was only 4 inches high—smaller than the normal ocean waves. But a tsunami has a characteristic extremely long wavelength. Data collected on the ship was able to pull out of the background movement the change in sea surface height caused by the wave.

“Our discovery indicates that the vast fleet of commercial ships traveling the ocean each day could become a network of accurate tsunami sensors,” Foster said. 

The current best technologies for determining the strength of an underway tsunami  are their appearance on automated tide gauges on islands that lie midway along their paths, and an array of deep ocean pressure sensing DART systems. The DART array is problematic since they are very expensive and difficult to maintain. SOEST in a news release said the DART installation between Hawai`i and Chile at the time of the tsunami was out of order, as was 30 percent of the entire network.

Said Foster:  “If we could equip some fraction of the shipping fleet with high-accuracy GPS and satellite communications, we could construct a dense, low-cost tsunami sensing network that would improve our detection and predictions of tsunamis -- saving lives and money."

 He and fellow researchers at UH SOEST plan to install systems on a couple of ships, to begin collecting data, and to see whether these systems can, in fact, save lives and property, as well as cash. 

The report details: GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 39, L09603, 4 PP., 2012 doi:10.1029/2012GL051367

© Jan TenBruggencate 2012