Observations from Paradise

Last summer, my wife and I finally took that trip to Hawaii that we had been thinking about ever since we got married 10 years ago.  The trip was a lot of fun – we got to see Kilauea, blue Pacific waves crashing on the shore, gorgeous sunsets, the vista of the islands from the top of Haleakala, sea turtles on a black sand beach.  It’s a geologist’s paradise with all the volcanoes and volcanic formations you can see in few other places in the world. But, since we didn’t spend any time on Oahu, I can’t tell you if it is like Hawaii 50, where the beaches are all populated by women who look like they came out of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue.

On the trip out there, I was humming a little song by John Prine – “Let’s Talk Dirty in Hawaiian”. Since this is a family posting, I won’t repeat the words. But soon after we started our journey, which covered the islands of Hawaii and Maui, I could not get the last words of the old Don Henley song, “The Last Resort” from the Eagles 1976 Album Hotel California, out of my head.  It goes like this:

“Call someplace Paradise, I don’t know why.  Call some place Paradise, kiss it goodbye.”

Don’t even get me started on the resorts on Hawaii’s Kona Coast or Maui’s Lahaina.  Heck, you don’t need to go to Hawaii to see resorts like this, fancy hotels around outdoor malls with stores you could see at the Natick Collection – if that’s the kind of vacation you want - you need not go further than Miami so don’t waste the airfare to go half way across the Pacific.

No, the worst thing was that it was very clear to me early on in the trip that the Hawaiian Islands are substantially damaged from an ecological perspective. The changes wrought by Western society since it arrived there in the 1700’s are substantial.

On Hawaii, we saw these little gray critters darting in and out of the underbrush and across streets all the time. What were they? Indian mongoose.  These mongooses are the descendants of 72 animals brought to the islands in 1883 in an attempt to control the fast growing population of rats which were destroying the sugar cane plantations.

The problem was – mongooses are diurnal (day time) critters and rats are nocturnal.  Thus – they did almost nothing to control the rats. What mongooses did eat were birds and bird eggs.  A lot of indigenous Hawaiian birds were flightless or laid their eggs in nests on the ground, due to the lack of predators. So mongooses were responsible for the extinction of 71 different bird species unique to the islands.  Currently, 90 bird species are listed as endangered in the U.S. and one third of them are in the Hawaiian Islands. Feral cats also contributed to this problem.

We stayed in a lovely B&B on the big island (and if you go to Hawaii, I highly recommend it) which was off the beaten path, that is, a mile off the highway, about 15 miles from Hilo.  Every night, we were serenaded by loud choruses of tree frogs, which you would hear in New England for only a few weeks in the spring.  We thought it was lovely – BUT – these Caribbean tree frogs only came to the islands in 1992 via flowers destined for nurseries.  These frogs compete with native birds whose diet mostly consists of insects.

Axis Deer, native to India, were brought to Maui in the 1950s for big game hunting at private ranches. An enterprising helicopter pilot brought a few of these deer from Maui to the big Island in 2009 and the population has exploded because, as with most invasive species – it has no natural predators (duh). The deer damage forests, and destroy habitat for endangered native flora and fauna.  They are now subject to an eradication program. Since the deer can easily jump fences designed to keep wild pigs out of farms and private property – they can move quite easily around the island.

By the way – pigs were first brought to the islands by the Polynesians who settled the islands and then Europeans brought larger domestic pigs with them later on.  The pigs destroy forest understory and can strip whole hillsides of vegetation, which promotes erosion, which chokes rivers and streams with mud and when the mud reaches the oceans – chokes coral, which destroys fish habitat.  It’s a mess. 
There is a bounty on pigs now (as is the case with deer).  The only thing that Hawaiians appreciate about the pigs is that it gives them a heck of a lot of meat to sock away in home freezers or smokehouses.

The last example of invasive species is floral, not faunal.  The Australian Eucalyptus tree was introduced in 1870 – mostly to reforest areas where native hardwoods were clear cut.  The problem with the Eucalyptus is that it is adapted for arid environments – not humid tropical environments. Whereas tropical trees are adapted to keep water in the soil, Eucalyptus trees suck the water out, leaving soils more water poor than before and form monocultures by dominating all other local species.  They are also very hard to eradicate as cutting them down does not kill the tree unless the stumps are completely removed from the ground – a near impossibility due to the steep and inaccessible nature of mountain slopes on the islands.  Hawaiians say that the trees actually change local weather patterns.

Today, endangered native species are heavily protected.  Prison sentences and fines in excess of $100,000 can be levied against anyone who cuts down a native Koa or Ohia hardwood tree. 

The Nene (pronounced Neh Neh), the Hawaiian State Bird, is a land dwelling goose descended from the Canada goose.  Just as there are yellow signs in New England to keep an eye out for moose or deer, the same kinds of signs in Hawaii warn of Nene crossings and can be seen even in the most godforsaken desolate volcanic terrain which would give the dark side of the moon a run for its money.  Turn a nene into roadkill and be ready to fork up 50 large and spend a year in jail.  Nene deaths actually are newsworthy items in Hawaii – just like a hit and run would be here. Despite the signs – the only nenes my wife and I observed were in the Hilo Zoo.

As an aside – I had an argument with a tour guide who told us the Nene was descended from the Canadian goose.  I told him it was the Canada goose.  He asked me what the difference was and I said there is no such thing as the Canadian goose.   I think he shrugged his shoulders and figured I was just another one of those weird Hoale (pronounced howl-lee) mainlanders.

Maintaining a western lifestyle in the state of Hawaii is not easy.  One bag of groceries cost us $100.  Electricity on Maui is $0.34 per kilowatt hour, over twice what it is here. The island's only powerplant runs on imported diesel fuel. Sugar plantations are hard on the local environment. The cane plants are burned to remove the leaves and enable an easier harvest. Ash and dust are referrred to by the locals as "Maui snow". Once the fields are burned, the powerful tradewinds then raise ochre colored dust storms that can sweep across the island.  Health effects of these practices are little studied, even today.

The bottom line is that if you aren’t at the beach resorts, and you spend a bit of time looking through the façade of the travel brochures, you get a different perspective on places like Hawaii. The islands are beautiful - but some of that beauty is in fact, skin deep. I came away with a better perspective that the really unique places on Earth are very delicate –it does not take much to screw them up – and the main cause of those screw ups is us – intentionally or unintentionally.