Lighthouse Jigsaw Puzzles

Key West, Florida, Lighthouse Jigsaw Puzzle

During the months of Covid 19 social distancing and the Stay-at-Home regimen, I created some of my favorite photographs as jigsaw puzzles, an entertainment that can be enjoyed at home by yourself or with family and friends. One of my favorite photographic subjects is the lighthouse, which is a symbol as well as a reality of safety and sanctuary throughout the world. Zazzle offers jigsaw puzzles in a range of sizes and levels of difficulty. You can upload your own photographs and artwork to Zazzle, creating your own jigsaw puzzles.

Click on the links beneath each jigsaw puzzle to read more about these historic lighthouses. Many of the American lighthouses are on the National Register of Historic Places.

Nubble Light, Cape Neddick, Maine Jigsaw Puzzle

Old Cape Point Lighthouse, South Africa Jigsaw Puzzle

Portland Head Light, Maine Jigsaw Puzzle

Kilauea Lighthouse on Kauai Jigsaw Puzzle

Sletterhage Lighthouse, Denmark Jigsaw Puzzle

Cape San Blas Lighthouse, Port St. Joe, Florida Jigsaw Puzzle

See More of My Lighthouse Jigsaw Puzzles in This Collection by Clicking on this Link.

Click on This Link to See My Jigsaw Puzzles on Fine Art America.

Picasa, Farewell

Google is replacing the multi-talented desktop-based Picasa (left) with the minimalist cloud-based Google Photos (right.)

Changes in technology come with breakneck speed. Some we embrace, some we don’t. At least when WordPress streamlined its format, it allowed us the opportunity to use the more beefy original administrator. (Thank you, WordPress.)

One change I’m dreading is the loss of the Picasa photo editing website.  Google is retiring it in spring 2016.  Google has every right to do so, especially since Picasa users pay nothing for its use, but it’s still a bitter blow.  A lot of Picasa users don’t even know it’s going bye-bye yet, although apparently people knew it was coming a while ago. Google is focusing on Google Photos, which is quite different from Picasa and not as useful for my needs. Supposedly, we’ll still be able to use Picasa, if we already have it installed on our desktops, until it dies out from bugs and glitches. We’ll see.

Google Photos is a nice photo storage system, but not a good replacement as an editing and design tool.  In Google Photos, you can upload all of your photos to the cloud for free in a small version, which is probably large enough for most uses, and pay if you need to upload large files when you exceed your large-size quota. I’m transferring all of my large-sized photos to external hard drives.

My son gave me the heads up on Friday night on Picasa’s impending demise, and I was shocked. I was working on my taxes, so I was already in a foul mood, and I quickly went into mourning.  I taped a black ribbon to my monitor. I searched the web (using the damnable Google) to find an alternative.  I use Photoshop a lot, but Picasa is just so darned easy and could do so much. It has lots of design and editing tools and is great for  organizing my photos into files and albums. It will still be usable on your desktop, if you already have it, but won’t be getting any support from Google.

I used Picasa to edit this photograph that I took of Harvest, a cat that was available for adoption at Wayside Waifs in Kansas City, Missouri. Using Picasa, I could easy crop this photo to the pixel size and aspect required for uploading to the website. Also using Picasa, I could add my initials so that the shelter administrators would know who took the photo if they needed a larger size. Auto contrast, auto color, straightening and sharpening were Picasa tools I often used.

For more than five years, I’ve been using Picasa to edit the photographs I take of adoptable cats for an animal shelter’s website in Kansas City, Missouri. It makes it so easy to tag the photo with the cat’s name, attach a watermark and be able to find the photos later.  As far as I can tell, you can’t tag photos in Google Photos. Face recognition will not work with cats.  Because of the ease of use and because it was free, Picasa has been a godsend for other volunteer cat photographers who aren’t photo editors. Now, we’re scrambling to find an alternative.

Here’s a Hibiscus poster (below) that I created using Picasa. I used the posterize function to transform my hibiscus photograph, I used the add a border function to add the initial two-toned border, created a wider border with the collage tool, then added another two-tone border. I added the text of Hibiscus waimeae above the flower and added a band of an hibiscus font that I uploaded, which automatically transferred into Picasa when I downloaded it. Picasa allowed color matching so that I could match the greens and reds of the hibiscus photo to the font and background colors. Though there were many steps, it was easy. I don’t relish learning a new program to do these functions.

If you know of an easy, inexpensive alternative for downloading, editing and organizing photos, let me know in the comments.  I’m checking into FastStone.org.  Anyone have any experience with that program?

http://thenextweb.com/google/2016/02/12/r-i-p-picasa-google-shutters-aging-photo-service/

“Whale” You Help Me?

Whale mural, Kapa’a, Kauai.

I grew up in Kansas, far from any ocean (though I was born within a stone’s throw of the Potomac River in Virginia), so visits to the ocean were rare, and I didn’t see a whale until I was an adult. But once I did, I was hooked. Who can resist the majesty of whales, their power and grace? I admit, I’m a landlubber, so the pull of the traveling the deep, blue sea is lost on me, but I love the creatures that live within it.

Some of my best photos of whales are of murals…I think these are all of Humpback whales. Can someone help me identify them?

Humpack whale, Kona, Hawaii.

I don’t have any good photos of a recent whale watching trip my husband and I took off of the Na Pali coast of Kauai, because my camera had to be put away in a waterproof area because of the 17-foot swells (as tall as the boat!).  Also, I spent at least fifteen minutes with my face in a bucket, my first time ever being seasick, after having been on ocean-going ships dozens of times. The captain warned us that the sea would be rough, but I thought I was an old salt and wouldn’t have any problem. Wrong!  Had an entire pod of whales been performing the Nutcracker Suite within feet of the boat, I wouldn’t and couldn’t have looked up from my beloved bucket.

After my stomach calmed, I did see a month-old humpback whale breaching time after time very close to the boat, it was wonderful! (Sadly, no photo.)  You could tell this baby was having such a fun time.

Humpback whale, Glacier Bay, Alaska.

In addition to being in the right place to see whales, you also need to be there at the right time. One February, we watched Humpback whales off the coast of the Big Island of Hawaii.  They winter in Hawaiian waters.  Then that summer, we saw Humpback whales in Glacier Bay of Alaska, their summer feeding grounds.  In January 2013, we looked for whales off of the coast of South Africa, too, but it wasn’t the right season, alas.

Whale Mural in Monterey, California.

Whale Mural in Monterey, California.

Whale Mural in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Whale Mural in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Whale Mural in Portsmouth New Hampshire.

Sadly, there are still whalers in modern times.

Whalers Museum in Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii.

A List and Photos of Cetaceans: Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises.

“In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex,” which inspired inspired Herman Melville’s novel “Moby-Dick.”

“In the Heart of the Sea” film, directed by Ron Howard, scheduled for release in 2015.

About the novel “Moby-Dick.”

History of Whaling.

I Gotta Crow About Kauai Chickens

A chick stopped to take a drink in the rainwater in a snorkel mask in the yard of the house where we were staying. His mothers and siblings are just ahead.

Clucking and crowing chickens, crashing waves and whirring helicopters are the sounds I’ll always associate with Kauai, the oldest of the main inhabited Hawaiian islands.

Every morning during our too-short visit to paradise, my husband and I awoke to huge waves crashing on the beach in the bay outside of our house and the crowing of roosters.

A mother hen and her chicks would make the rounds of the neighborhood several times a day. First, you’d hear the cheep cheep cheep of the chicks and then the occasional cluck of the mother as they pecked their way through the grass and bushes of the yard.

Helicopters were often crossing the sky to take tourists to view the many incredible sights, which have often been filmed for movies (“Jurassic Park,” is one example.) I’ve only been in a helicopter once — to fly over Maui almost 20 years ago. It was gorgeous, but I haven’t gotten up the nerve to get into a helicopter since. My husband and I did take a boat trip on this vacation. First time I ever got sea sick. (More about that later…)

Mother hens and their chicks were everywhere on Kauai.

Chickens were everywhere! Other islands have wild chickens, (A rooster showed up for my son’s beach wedding in St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands) but Kauai has CHICKENS. On every trail, on the beaches, in shopping center parking lots, on the sidewalks outside of restaurants, in parks, in churchyards, every neighborhood, everywhere. They are gorgeous and colorful. They are descended from the Junglefowl that the ancient Hawaiians brought with them centuries ago. They’ve bred with other types of chickens that others have brought to the island, but have mostly retained the gorgeous Junglefowl coloring. The chickens have no predator, other than man and cats, so they thrive.  People say they aren’t good to eat, so they are mostly even safe from humans. There are mongooses on some of the other islands, such as the Big Island and Maui, which eat chickens and eggs. There are mongooses on St. John, too. But mongooses were never introduced to Kauai.

Here’s What I Wrote About The Mongoose in an Earlier Post.

Here are some of my chicken photos. Yes, I do like to take photos of chickens, maybe a little too much.

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Taro — It’s What’s for Dinner

These taro fries from Tropical Taco in Hanalei, Kauai, were delicious!

Taro, known in the Hawaiian language as kalo, is the Hawaiian people’s most important crop. They brought it with them in their voyaging canoes when they migrated to the Hawaiian islands at least by 1,000 A.D. and possibly as early as 200 A.D. Kaua’i was the first inhabited Hawaiian island and is where most of Hawaiian taro is grown today. Seventy percent of the taro is grown in Hanalei River Valley, which includes the 917-acre Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge.  The 917-acre refuge was established in 1972 to provide nesting and feeding habitat for endangered Hawaiian water birds, including the Hawaiian duck (koloa maoli), coot (‘alae ke’oke’o), moorhen (‘alae ‘ula), and stilt (ae’o).

The Hanalei River was designated an American Heritage River on July 30, 1998. The major bridge across the river (still one lane) is on Hawaii Route 560, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Hawaii.  When you’re waiting to cross the bridge to the town of Hanalei, you can see the taro fields beyond.

A taro field in the Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge in northern Kauai.

A tractor prepares a taro field in the Hanalei River Valley.

Water flows from a taro field in Limahuli Garden in northern Kauai. The rock walls you can see in the background are part of an important archeological site and are about 700 years old.

The rock walls surrounding the taro fields are estimated to be about 700 years old in the Limahuli Tropical Botanical Garden in north Kauai west of Hanalei. The rock walls were part of an irrigation system that diverted some water from the Limahuli River to grow taro.

I’ve never eaten a McDonald’s pie before, but we couldn’t resist trying this taro version at a McDonald’s in Lihue, Kauai. It tasted like pineapple, which was likely an added flavor, because our taro fries didn’t taste like pineapple. Anyway, it wasn’t bad for a fried fast food pie.

You can see the taro fields on either side of the Hanalei River. This is also a wildlife refuge.

Limahuli Garden and Preserve in northern Kauai.

Terraced taro fields are in the Limahuli Garden and Preserve. The rock walls you can see in the background are part of an important archeological site and are about 700 years old.

Here are some traditional Hawaiian foods, including taro, dried coconut and dried fish. We tried these foods at a Hawaiian ceremony in a park on the Kona Coast of the Big Island on February 2011.

About Poi, Poi to the World.

Wikipedia: About Taro.

Here’s an excerpt about taro in Hawaii from the Wikipedia Entry for Taro: In Hawaii, taro, or kalo in the Hawaiian language, is a traditional form of food sustenance and nutrition, known from ancient Hawaiian culture. The contemporary Hawaiian diet consists of many tuberous plants, particularly sweet potato and taro. Some of the uses for taro include poi, table taro, taro chips, and luau leaf. In Hawaii, taro is farmed under either dryland or wetland conditions. Taro farming in the Hawaiian islands is especially challenging because of difficulties in accessing fresh water. Taro is usually grown in pondfields known as loʻi in Hawaiian. Cool, flowing water yields the best crop. Typical dryland or upland varieties (varieties grown in watered but not flooded fields) in Hawaii are lehua maoli and bun long, the latter widely known as Chinese taro. Bun long is used for making taro chips. Dasheen (also called “eddo”) is another “dryland” variety of C. esculenta grown for its edible corms or sometimes just as an ornamental plant.

The Hawaii Agricultural Statistics Service puts the 10-year median production of taro in the Hawaiian Islands at about 6.1 million pounds (2,800 t; Viotti, 2004). However, 2003 taro production in Hawaii was only 5 million pounds (2,300 t), an all-time low (record keeping started in 1946). The previous low, reached in 1997, was 5.5 million pounds (2,500 t). Despite generally growing demand, production was even lower in 2005: only 4 million pounds, with kalo for processing into poi accounting for 97.5%. Urbanization has driven down harvests from a high of 14.1 million pounds (6,400 t) in 1948, but more recently the decline has resulted from pests and diseases. A non-native apple snail (Pomacea canaliculata) is a major culprit in the current crop decline. Also, a plant rot disease traced to a newly identified species of the fungal genus Phytophthora now plagues crops throughout the state. Although pesticides could control both pests to some extent, pesticide use in the pondfields is barred because of the clear opportunity for chemicals to quickly migrate into streams and then into the ocean.

Important aspects of Hawaiian culture revolves around taro cultivation and consumption. For example, the newer name for a traditional Hawaiian feast, luau, comes from the taro. Young taro tops baked with coconut milk and chicken or octopus arms are frequently served at luaus. Also, one cannot fight when a bowl of poi is open. By ancient Hawaiian custom, it is considered disrespectful to fight in front of an elder. One should not raise the voice, speak angrily, or make rude comments or gestures. An open poi bowl is connected to this concept because Haloa (Taro) is the name of the first-born son of the parents who begat the human race. The ancient Hawaiians identified so strongly with taro that the Hawaiian term for family, `ohana, is derived from the word `oha, the shoot or sucker which grows from the taro corm. As young shoots grow from the corm, so people grow from their family.

Hanalei Bay Surfing Dog

A man and his dog paddleboard in Hanalei Bay on the island of Kaua’i in Hawai’i.

The surf on most of the north shore of Kaua’i was rough when my husband and I visited there in late February and early March 2014, but the waves on the north shore’s Hanalei Bay were not as wild as the rest of the coast.  I’m no expert, but Hanalei Bay seems a good place to surf.  It’s shallow, there’s a great pier and a nice beach with lots of parking. Plenty of people of all ages were surfing and paddleboarding, including this man and his dog.

While a crowd of us on the pier watched the action, I heard someone say that this man has a website.  I didn’t catch the name, and I couldn’t find any information when I searched online for Hanalei “surfing dog” and “paddleboard dog.”  Maybe someone can help me and link the website in the comments? (Check the comments for updated information on Keoni Durant, the Kauai Carver, and Milo the Surfing Pomeranian.)

A man and his dog paddleboard in Hanalei Bay on the island of Kaua’i in Hawai’i.

Several major films were shot at Hanalei Bay including: academy award winner “The Descendents” along with “Soul Surfer,” “South Pacific,” “Miss Sadie Hawkins,” “Pagan Love Song” and “Honeymoon in Vegas.”

Other north shore of Kauai film locations include Limahuli Gardens in Hanalei, featured in “Jurassic Park,” and Honopu and Kalalau Beach on the Na Pali Coast, featured in “King Kong” and “Pirates.”

Hanalei Bay Featured in Movie Locations

Can You Find The Crab?

Can you find the tiny crab, whose coloring matches the large grains of sand of this beach on the north shores of Kauai?

I saw this tiny crab, about the size of a grape, skittering across the loose sand of a beach on the north shore of the island of Kauai in Hawaii. When the crab stopped, the crab was hard to spot.  I don’t know what kind of crab it is.  Possibly a ghost or a sand crab.  Does anyone know?

Here’s a closer look at the tiny crab that I saw skittering across the loose sand of a beach on the north side of Kauai. When the crab stopped moving, I could barely see it.

About Ghost Crabs in Hawaii.

Historic Theaters

The Rialto Theatre, South Pasadena, California, photographed in September 2009. Opened in 1925, this theater is now closed.

It was love at first sight when I saw The Rialto Theatre.  I was introduced to this old beauty when I visited my friend Jan in South Pasadena, California, in the 1990’s. I’ve taken many photographs of “The Rialto” since then, but may not get the chance much longer if it isn’t saved.  This venerable theater opened in 1925 but it is now closed and in danger of demolition, as are many old theaters.  A scene in Robert Altman’s movie film “The Player” was filmed in The Rialto’s back alley.  “Scream 2” also featured The Rialto.

The Rialto is beautiful even in its decay.   Like so many old theaters, it was decorated grandly.  It has a fanciful Moorish, Egyptian and baroque motif. When I wrote an article for the Kansas City Star’s magazine about Orval Hixon, who photographed vaudeville stars from 1914 to 1930, I saw photographs of many glamorous theaters that have now fallen into ruin or are gone.

In the background is The Rialto Theatre, South Pasadena, California.

In the “old days,” an evening spent in the theater was a beautiful experience beyond what was being performed on the stage or shown on the screen. Some of the first movies I saw as a child was in The Orpheum, a gorgeously decorated old theater in Wichita, Kansas, which was originally built for vaudeville shows. Like many entertainment legends, these old theaters needs more than face lifts to keep them alive.  Sometimes only the marquee sign is all that’s saved from an old theater.

Some of the theaters, such as the ones in Hawaii that I photographed, might not be grand, but they have their own charm. Farm workers and U.S. servicemen were among their clientale.

It’s bittersweet seeing these old cinema relics, whether they are grand cinema palaces or more humble screens. I’m grateful many of these historic theaters are still standing, but who knows for how long? People watch films on their computers and even on their phones these days.  When people do go to the theater they want a great sound system, recliner seats, cup holders and even 3-D screens.

Jan and I and our husbands planned to see a movie at The Rialto in the early 2000s, when the theater was still open, but when we got to the box office we were told that the projector was broken.  So we walked across the street to a video store and rented a VHS movie to watch at home. Sadly, I never saw a movie at The Rialto before it closed.

Here’s a slide show of theaters I’ve photographed in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Michigan and Missouri.  There is information about each theater when you click on the photo.  CLICK ON ANY THUMBNAIL PHOTO TO BEGIN THE SLIDESHOW AND SEE THE PHOTOS FULL SIZED.

Click on Cinema Treasures for a guide to more than 30,000 movie theaters from around the world, including theaters that are now closed.

Click on I’m Not Ready For My Close Up to read about my brief appearance on the Big Screen in the movie “fling.”

Here’s a blog that documents grand old theaters, many sadly in advanced decay.  After the Final Curtain

About the theaters featured in slide show:

The Rialto, South Pasadena, California

Friends of The Rialto

Friends of The Rialto Facebook Page.

Sebastiani Theatre, Sonoma, California.

Michigan Theatre, Escanaba, Michigan

Gem Theatre, Kansas City, Missouri

Aloha Theatre, Kainaliu, Big Island, Hawaii

Honoka’a People’s Theater, Honoka’a, Big Island, Hawaii

Honomu Theater, Honomu, Big Island, Hawaii

Na’alehu Theatre, Na’alehu, Big Island, Hawaii

Park Theatre, Estes Park, Colorado

Screenland Crossroads Sign from old Isis Theatre, Kansas City, Missouri.

Living at the Edge of an Active Volcano

This bouquet of anthurium and ginger flowers  is a gift to Pele, the Hawaiian Goddess of fire, lightning, dance and volcanoes.  The bouquet was left at the edge of the summit caldera of Kīlauea in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island of Hawaii.  Kīlauea is one of the Earth’s most active volcanoes and is considered one of its most dangerous. Kīlauea and its Halemaʻumaʻu caldera were traditionally considered Pele’s sacred home, and Hawaiians visit the crater to offer gifts to the goddess.

My husband and I visited Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park in February 2011, but we were a month too early for the latest big show at Kīlauea when a crater floor collapsed in early March.  Scientists reported lava blasts 65 feet high in the volcano, and more than 150 small earthquakes have hit the region since the collapse.

The Big Island of Hawaii's Pu'u O'o crater is seen on Sunday, March 6, 2011. The crater floor collapsed on Saturday causing new eruptions along the east rift zone. (AP Photos/Tim Wright)

Despite the danger, or perhaps because of it, Kīlauea is the most visited tourist site in Hawaii.  From the house where we stayed in Hilo, we watched a new cruise ship arrive every day full of  tourists who were bussed to the volcano for a quick visit.

Steam rises from the summit crater of Kilauea Volcano in early February 2011. This is a view from the Thomas A. Jaggar Museum observation deck.

The crater appears harmless from the observatory deck at the Thomas A. Jaggar Museum, but the volcano can erupt suddenly as Hawaiians discovered in  1790 when a group was caught in an unusually violent eruption. Many were killed and some of their footprints in the lava can still be seen.

Plants take hold in a relatively recent lava flow west of Kalapana, Hawaii. This lava moved into a neighborhood of houses, destroying some and isolating others. You can see a plume of steam from the volcano in the background.

The Pu’u O’o cone now erupting so spectacularly has been continuously erupting in the eastern rift-zone since 1983, making it the longest rift-zone eruption of the last 200 years.

Lava surrounded this house, leaving it intact, but it has been abandoned.

When we visited Kīlauea, we didn’t see any activity other than a little steam in the summit crater, a hint of red in cracks on the crater floor and a parade of steam vents along the road. There was a faint whiff of sulfur in the air.  (If you want really sulfurous air, you need to visit Yellowstone National Park.)  Okay, I was disappointed.   I was hoping for a quivering red-hot river of lava. I wanted spurting fountains.   I’m sure any area with active eruptions and toxic gases would be kapu (forbidden) to tourists.  I was hoping for a sudden lava spurt before rangers herded the tourists to safety.

One of the roads in the park was closed because of recent lava flows, and now with the most recent eruptions more of the park is closed.  The closed road used to continue to another entrance to the park near the town of Kalapana, but that part of the road is now covered by a lava flow.

We drove to Kalapana, where lava has flowed into neighborhoods as recently as a month earlier, destroying some homes.  Steam rose from the most recent flow. Homes are surrounded by the mounds of black lava flows, some are still inhabited, others abandoned.

Bouquets of orchids adorn every table at this Kalapana cafe, set in a lush tropical forest. Just a few miles away, lava has destroyed the forests and 200 homes in recent years.

Just a few miles away from the area of damaged and lost homes, people live in the lush tropical town of Kalapana. You can sit among the palm, banana and mango trees, surrounded by hibiscus shrubs, without a hint that Kīlauea rages just beyond the treetops.  What is it like to live in paradise with the possibility of destruction — literally hellfire and brimstone — so real?

The Kalapana area gained notoriety when the 1990 Kīlauea lava flow from the Kupaianaha vent destroyed and partly buried most of the town and some nearby subdivisions. The lava flow that destroyed Kalapana erupted from the southeast rift zone of Kīlauea. Along with the destruction of Kalapana were those of the nearby town of Kaimū and Kaimū Bay, both of which now lie buried beneath more than 50 feet of lava. More than eight miles of highway and at least 200 homes and other structures have been destroyed by lava since the mid-1980s. The lava flow also created a new coastline. Since 1983, several hundred acres of new land has been added to the Big Island.

People live at the edge of the lava flow from Kilauea.

Hawai’i Volcano Fast Facts:

Kīlauea is one of five shield volcanoes that form the island of Hawaii, which is the youngest of the Hawaiian islands.  The volcanoes erupted somewhat sequentially, one overlapping the other. These volcanoes are (from oldest to youngest):

• Kohala—extinct (northernmost)
• Mauna Kea—dormant
• Hualālai—active but not currently erupting (Last erupted in 1801 and is expected to erupt again.)
• Mauna Loa—active, partly within Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, the world’s most massive volcano.
• Kīlauea—active, has been erupting continuously since 1983; part of Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park and one of the world’s most active volcanoes. (southernmost)

Kīlauea is the second youngest of  the volcanoes that have created the more than 100 islands in the Hawaiian archipelago, as the Pacific Plate moves over the Hawaii Hotspot.  Lōʻihi Seamount is the newest volcano in the chain.  It lies 22 miles off the southeast coast of the Big Island at 3,000 feet under sea level.

A couple walks on a trail near the Thurston Lava Tube in Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park. The terrain in the park ranges from lush rain forest to shrub land to dry almost desert-like conditions.

Kīlauea means “spewing” or “much spreading” in the Hawaiian language, referring to its frequent outpouring of lava.  About 1,000 gallons of molten lava flow out of active vents every second.  Nearly 2 billion cubic yards of lava rock have come from Kīlauea since its current eruption period began in 1983.

About Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park.

Video of Kilauea Volcano erupting in March 2011.

Kīlauea Iki trail traverses Kīlauea Iki Crater.  Click on the photo to get a full-size view of the crater, taken from Kīlauea Iki Overlook.  You can see a glowing red vent issuing a plume of steam on the crater floor.

Hawaiian Islands Map.

Why Did The Mongoose Cross The Road?

When it stands, this mongoose looks like its relative the Meerkat.

Years ago in a biology class, I learned about the Indian Mongoose’s introduction to Hawaii (in 1883) as a predator to kill the rats that were thriving in sugar cane fields.  Well, like so many ideas like this, it was a disaster (rabbits to Australia, for example…) The mongooses ate the native birds and their eggs instead.

I’d forgotten about the mongoose  until I recently saw one dashing across the road on the Big Island of Hawaii, where they are pests. As it dashed, it looked like a small ferret.  Every so often, my husband and I would see another one running like mad across the road.  I was never fast enough with my camera.  Finally, I did get a few blurry photographs of a mongoose that seemed to live in the bushes of someone’s yard outside of a botanical garden.  When it stands, it looks like a meerkat, which is one of its relatives.

Standing here, he looks like his relative the Meerkat. He may have a burrow in the yard of this house.

From wikipedia: The 1800s were a huge century for sugar cane, and plantations shot up on many tropical islands including Hawai’i and Jamaica. With sugar cane came rats, attracted to the sweet plant, which ended up causing crop destruction and loss. Attempts were made to introduce the species in Trinidad in 1870 but this failed. A subsequent trial with four males and five females from Calcutta however established in Jamaica in 1872. A paper published by W. B. Espeut that praised the results intrigued Hawaiian plantation owners who, in 1883, brought 72 mongooses from Jamaica to the Hamakua Coast on the Big Island. These were raised and their offspring were shipped to plantations on other islands. Populations that have been introduced to these islands show larger sizes than in their native ranges. They also show genetic diversification due to drift and population isolation.

Only the islands of Lana’i and Kaua’i are (thought to be) free of mongooses. There are two conflicting stories of why Kaua’i was spared. The first is that the residents of Kaua’i were opposed to having the animals on the island and when the ship carrying the offspring reached Kaua’i, the animals were thrown overboard and drowned. A second story tells that on arriving on Kaua’i one of the mongooses bit a dockworker who, in a fit of anger, threw the caged animals into the harbor to drown.

The mongoose introduction did not have the desired effect of rat control. The mongoose hunted birds and bird eggs, threatening many local island species. The mongooses bred prolifically with males becoming sexually mature at 4 months and females producing litters of 2-5 pups a year.

If that isn’t bad enough, Mongooses can carry the infectious bacterial disease Leptospirosis.

About the mongoose.

More about the mongoose.

News report about trapping Mongooses.

 

This mongoose ran back and forth on this road on the Big Island of Hawaii near Hilo several times. He kept checking to see whether I'd left.