Tiffany Hill ,. This article appears in the October issue of Honolulu Magazine. Most Popular. Promotional Content. Subscribe to Honolulu. Na Hoku Hanohano Awards. HI Now. About Us. Work at Hawaii News Now. TV Guide. TV Listings. Terry's Take. Telemundo Hawaii. Gray DC Bureau. Investigate TV. Tracking Oahu's wild parrots. Published: May. Share on Facebook. Email This Link. Share on Twitter. The field was looking great, in good condition.
We came back on Monday and every ear of corn had been totally eaten. It was down to just the cob. The companies also hire people to scare the birds away. Wiederoder estimates all of it costs the four seed companies hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. This is one more thing that increases our price, and makes it less and less attractive for us to be here— in Hawaii. Bill Lucey says the birds are hard to control because they're so smart.
They seem to be able to recognize farmers who've threatened them before. They recognize their jackets, the trucks they drive. What they'll do is send in two birds to scout the fields. They'll look for danger. If they see someone else's truck, that doesn't mean they're gonna fly away. But if they see a certain truck and they recognize it, they'll give out an alarm call. And the birds won't come in.
The noise — and the big mess they make — are nuisances for tourists and residents who live beneath those trees they return to sleep in every night. And the local authorities suspect they might be stripping seeds from native plants in Kauai's mountains, like the Koa tree.
And that gets to a larger issue facing the state of Hawaii. It's one of the most isolated island chains in the world. And that means native plants and animals here didn't evolve to compete with foreign threats. When species from other parts of the world come to Hawaii, they tend to be much more competitive than some of the native species.
And that delicate unique balance we have— here in Hawaii can be upset really easily. The invasion of Hawaii by invasive species is the single greatest threat to not only Hawaii's natural resources, but to its economy, agriculture, and to the health and lifestyle of Hawaii's people.
Bill Lucey says if they can catch the birds, they could sell them to pet stores. One option is to stretch nets— off the top so the buildings where the parakeets are roosting. And then we could catch them live. There's another option which has been used in the past. When the birds are sleeping, you can soak the tree with soapy water and they can't fly.
So they'll fall down. But Lucey says if catching them isn't enough, the state may have to resort to killing the birds. And that does not sit well with Cathy Goeggel, President of Animal Rights Hawaii, she objects to the idea the parakeets are invasive. These birds have been here for 50 years. They are an established population. They are loved by a lot of people and I think it's kind of pie in the sky to think that they can trap them and then send them back into the pet trade where they'll probably go someplace else where they're not wanted.
Goeggel says, in no circumstances should they be killed. She'd prefer the state look at ways to slip birth control into their food, a technique used on pigeons in other parts of the US. They are not responsible for having come to Hawaii on their own. They were brought here as a pet trade and released. And to kill them just because they're not native doesn't seem fair to me.
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