My husband’s photo: View from Diamond Head, Honolulu, Hawaii.
Don’t you just love it when I bring you “good” news from the Honolulu Star-Advertiser? Today’s headline mentions that a road crew doing maintenance work on Nimitz Highway near the airport saw and killed (with a weed whacker) a 2-foot-long snake! Why is this news? It’s news, because the import and possession of snakes are absolutely forbidden in Hawaii.
We don’t want Hawaii to turn into another Guam, which is rife with snakes. My youngest sister, Lucille, used to live in Guam, when her then-husband was a doctor in the US Navy and stationed there. She told me how afraid she was of getting into the shower, because she never knew if she would see a snake coiled around the faucet or drain. Snakes have killed so many birds and other wildlife on Guam that it has become a sorry place to live.
So how did this snake find its way to Oahu? Since it was found near the airport, my guess is that it hopped a ride on the exterior of a jet coming from Guam or some other place where snakes are prevalent.
If one snake was discovered in Honolulu, might there be others that are reproducing nearby? Ew!
January 26, 2012 at 6:47 am |
Did you read about how a snowy owl got over to the Honolulu Airport? A federal worker killed it because it might get in the flight path of a jet. You’d think they could at least capture it and put it in a zoo or something,
January 26, 2012 at 6:54 am |
Yeah, I read about it. Maybe, it was too hard to capture?
January 26, 2012 at 6:53 am |
I have heard Guam is a mess and I love the lack of snakes on Hawaii. Corn fields scare me on the mainland because I know snakes thrive in them. It took me awhile to turn off my natural reflex to avoid sugar cane fields for fear of snakes.
January 26, 2012 at 7:02 am |
Yes, and to think some people love them as pets.
L. from W.
January 26, 2012 at 7:08 am |
I was about to mention that Snowy Owl too, but Hattie beat me to it. That was sad.
It’s really irritating when people keep illegal animals here and then “lose” them.
January 26, 2012 at 7:43 am |
I hope not Gigi, it would be a terrible thing for Hawaii to be overrun with snakes for so many reasons. You probably know about the python problem in Florida, where owners got tired of their ‘pets’ and let them loose to run rampant through the Everglades.
January 26, 2012 at 7:48 am |
Horrible!
January 26, 2012 at 8:35 am |
oh snakes are scary, let’s hope your theory is right.
January 26, 2012 at 9:52 am |
Oh goodness, I hope you don’t get snakes in Hawaii. The wild lantana, goats, feral cats and dogs, rats and mongeese are bad enough.
January 26, 2012 at 11:44 am |
TOO TOO Scary!
Warm Aloha from Waikiki
Comfort Spiral
>
January 26, 2012 at 12:25 pm |
Could imagine me to be there now; we have storm here, really icy winds and frosty was here, too! Its expected that we should wakeup to snow as well tomorrow.
We had many snakes here last year. They are not really dangerous and I mostly see them being run over.
Greetings from Germany
Beatrice
January 26, 2012 at 6:26 pm |
I hate snakes! Let’s hope they can be kept under control in Hawaii.
January 27, 2012 at 2:06 am |
Sure hope he didn’t have a girl friend. I guess you all don’t have natural preditors for them.
I see I missed you Seal post. I did one on them also today.
January 27, 2012 at 3:11 am |
I would be alarmed about snakes also, but I did not realize it was illegal to have them in your state. I just assumed there were none on the island, but people sneak them in on planes and boats. I don’t like snakes either and found a small one once in my shower on the second floor. I can’t imagine how it got there unless it sneaked a ride in a laundry basket after coming into the house in the laundry room near the back door. I have plugged towels around the bottom of that door.
January 27, 2012 at 3:32 am |
Aren’t there any snakes native to Hawaii?
Florida (my home-state)has many! Including some very dangerous variety.
Okinawa in Japan has many too. Tokyo, thankfully, has almost none…probably because a metropolis isn’t an easy place for such a creature to survive.
By the way, a recent post of mine is about a dangerous snake vs a heroic dog:
http://tokyo5.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/hero-dogs/
January 27, 2012 at 4:05 am |
I hope the authorities find out the reason very soon.Within this month there have been four to five attacks by Leopard in my city Guwahati .It is a complete new thing ,may be illegal forest land encroachment by the illegal migrants is the reason for wild animals to turn to the cities.
January 27, 2012 at 11:06 am |
The non-native species really cause some serious problems for the other wildlife…and the people…