When is a Goose not a Goose?

Holiday in Hawaii #10

When is a goose not a goose?

When it’s a mongoose of course.

During our lunch break at Wai’anapanapa State Park on the Road to Hana, we had the feeling we were being watched. We spotted movement near the stone wall, but the creature moved so fast we missed him at first. So we sat very still and waited, and out he came again.

He surveyed the scene carefully before venturing out in search of food, but quickly darted back into the gap in the rock wall when people came too close.

Mongooses were imported into the islands of Hawaii in the 1800s to reduce the rat population in the sugar cane fields. Unfortunately, they took a liking to the native ground nesting birds and devoured them as well as the rats. The only Hawaiian island that doesn’t have mongooses is Kauai; the story goes that when a delivery of mongooses was being unloaded of a ship in Kauai, a mongoose bit the hand of a worker. He was enraged and threw all the cages into the ocean. As a result, Kauai has a much larger bird population than any other island.

Visit Jude’s Garden Challenge this month to see more animals in gardens.