Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I wish people would stop doing stupid stuff like this. Thinking it's a "natural" solution. They need to do their research first.
Sure, anyone can eat almost anything. I've eaten guinea pig on a few occasions, down in the Andes, where it's considered a delicacy. Do Mongooses have much meat on 'em?
From National Geographic:
Mongooses live in burrows and are nondiscriminatory predators, feeding on small animals such as rodents, birds, reptiles, frogs, insects, andworms. Some species supplement their diet with fruits, nuts, and seeds. Creative hunters, they are known to break open bird eggs by throwing them with their forepaws toward a solid object.
They'll eat snakes. Do they help keep the snake population under control? Does Hawaii have snakes?
agree with this, but this was done back in the 1880's. this was supposedly after they helped control rats in cane field elsewhere.
i've seen a mongoose in a humane society cat trap. they are mean and feisty, agree with drowning being the safest. there's no way to break it's neck with out getting hurt. i also imagine they carry other diseases as well, even though we supposedly don't have rabies in the state.
Vicious mean and nasty. There is no way you are going to pick one out of a trap and break it's neck. It's hard enough getting close enough to the trap to put it in a trashcan full of water.
A mongoose trap is about three feet long by about one foot tall and one foot wide. Put a small fast viciously fanged ferret like creature in there and it's not something you're gonna want to fool around with. Just dump it in a big can of water and hope the mongoose decided to reincarnate as a guinea pig.
Mongoose eat chicken eggs and kill chickens. They sneak into houses and eat dog food, although our smaller border collie will kill them if she finds them in her food dish. She's the only dog I've known who's been able to catch and kill a mongoose without getting bitten in return. Fortunately, there is no rabies in Hawaii or the mongoose would be an even worse problem. If the wretched things would just eat coqui frogs I'd harbor less antagonism towards them.
I've tried tanning a mongoose hide but the fur on them is scratchy and there was hardly enough to make a hatband with, too.
Our Hawaii snakes are an okay kinda snake. They are very similar to an earthworm who wiggles funny. If you see a worm that goes side to side to move and is sort of shiny with almost sort of a scale like look to them, then it's a snake and not a worm. They are sort of a different color than earthworms, too.
i also imagine they carry other diseases as well, even though we supposedly don't have rabies in the state.
According to the experts, about half of them are carriers for leptospirosis, a nasty disease you do not wish to catch. Unfortunately just a trace of their urine on a scrape or scratch can infect you. And if you use rainwater catchment and don't have an effective water sterilization strategy, their pee on your roof or raingutter can give you a lepto infection just from taking a shower or washing your dishes in the captured rainwater. Half the lepto infections in the entire country occur in Hawai'i, although the sensational news outlets are scaring the mainland right now with stories of catching lepto from rat pee on soda cans.
Bottom line: Mongooses are only cute in the movies, and they have devastated Hawai'i's native bird population, and tipped several species into extinction. If you have trapped and drowned one or shot one, you're well advised to wear gloves when disposing of the carcass in some safe way. Sorry, that's just the reality.
Nothing else preys on the mongoose so somebody has to try to keep the numbers in check. Same with the feral pigs. If we do nothing, they will be digging up and destroying the whole place. Both pigs and mongoose multiply like crazy, too. We at least usually eat the pigs so they are being killed and eaten which is less wasteful than merely killed, IMHO.
It is cruel to kill them slowly, so choose a humane method and kill them quickly.
The nene are coming back because the feral pigs are fenced out of the park where a lot of the nene nest and because the mongoose have been trapped and killed so the nene can lay their eggs and hatch them. If the mongoose were left alone, there'd be no nene.
Both mongoose and feral pigs are pretty nasty customers. Fierce, fast and fanged. Feral pigs have sharp tusks and are big enough to kill folks, mongoose just predate on native birds and kill off domestic ones when they can. Just wish they'd both eat coqui frogs.
Nice worm..er...snake.. Glad that pen was in the shot because I was getting worried. I don't even think about snakes over here.
So you'd rather be overrun with mongoose than Nene, which I'm reading is the Hawaiian state bird? I guess they're protected? Now THOSE you could feed some homeless with!
Little weaselly things, those mongooses. My friend has a pug/Jack Russell cross which kills mongooses. Feisty little dogs those JRT's.
No worries, Hunterseat, that's actually considered a large specimen of our snakes. They only get found around here because of the amount of gardening going on.
A JRT would be a good mongoose dog! I can just see the island over run with bouncy JRT's, though. Boing! Boing! Boing! Whappa! No more mongoose. It would take a pack of JRT's to take down a pig, though.
It's cruel to kill them, especially since the NeNe are making a comeback.
Sorry, I think that's misplaced sentimentality. Mongooses are a highly destructive invasive species which is a danger to all the various ground nesting birds of Hawai'i, not just the Nene (Hawaiian Goose). They have no redeeming qualities at all. And a lot of the comeback success of the Nene has been due to very expensive predator control measures instituted at Volcanoes National Park, plus the fact that there were no mongooses on Kaua'i, where the Nenes found safe refuge and multiplied in numbers.
Last year, however, after a number of reported sightings, a live mongoose was trapped on Kaua'i, throwing the security of the island's bird population into doubt.
Quote:
A deadly predator of birds – a mongoose (Herpestes javanicus) – has been captured on the Hawaiian Island of Kauaʻi, confirming the worst fears of local wildlife officials. Previously, Kauaʻi and Lanaʻi were believed to be the only two Hawaiian Islands free of non-native mongooses that prey on native birds. Mongoose predation has been a major factor in bird population declines in the archipelago, which has been dubbed “the bird extinction capital of the world.”
Not to milk this but what do those snakes eat? Are they good for dirt like worms? How come they're so big? Do they live other places too?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
