Skip to main content

A Picture of Kerry and Me On Our First Date

This is just before he kissed me.

Just kidding. That is one big honkin' toad though. Kerry and Ben were driving up to the house this week and the headlights picked up this big fella in the road.

Kerry, in his usual rapturous state of just having spotted a creature no one else would want to touch, leaped out of the car (I think he actually managed to put it in park first) and nabbed the thing.

Ben wanted to run over it. He's learned in science class that these toads are an invasive species not native to Hawaii. I pointed out that white people are not native to Hawaii (and pretty darn invasive) but I wouldn't want anyone running over us.

Cane toads were brought to Hawaii in 1932 to help control sugar cane beetles. Unfortunately it quickly became apparent that they were useless in this area because they could neither fly, climb, or otherwise scale the sugarcane plant to get to the beetles. However, the toads did prove to be adept and voracious predators to almost everything else: small mammals, other amphibians, snails, terrestrial and aquatic insects, and even dog and cat food. They also secrete a toxic substance which kills off anything that tries to eat it. It's the toad's only means of defense, but you have to admit it's pretty darn effective. They've managed to change the ecology of the island in many ways.

We did end up letting this one go. We just can't kill an animal that ugly (bugs don't count).
Labels:

Comments

  1. Trails of GraceJanuary 30, 2010 at 1:12 PM

    I am not kidding when I tell you this.. we have a creek down behind our house.. and we have had TWO of these critters up in our back yard near very watery areas. AMAZING. We even kept on in an aquarium for a while and fed it small insects, but finally let him go.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousFebruary 16, 2010 at 4:06 AM

    Amy, I love your blog! Would you write mine, please?

    Chrislyn

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ben's Feet

Ben went camping with his youth group this weekend. He said it was the best weekend he's had since we've been in Hawaii, and possibly in his entire life. The one negative part was that he stepped on some coral out in the water and cut his feet up pretty good. He swears it was all dead coral - you shouldn't touch live coral, much less walk on it because it damages the coral. No one ever mentions that it also damages your feet. They just tell you not to damage the coral. Also, coral is a living organism . If you step on live coral and a tiny piece breaks off in the cut, it will continue to grow. Did you see the movie Alien ? If some creature incubates in Ben's feet, then breaks out and eats us all one night, I'm going to be quite miffed. (Make sure you read the inscription on his tee shirt in this picture. It's quite appropriate.)
Post a Comment
Read more

Mammogram

I'm having my annual mammogram today. I always hear about how painful they are, but honestly, I've never thought they are that bad. Not the most comfortable, but not painful either. Every time I have a mammogram, I'm reminded of this story. It won the Erma Bombeck Writing Competition and I still get a kick out of it every time I read it. So I'm posting it here today for your reading pleasure: Erma Bombeck Writing Competition 1st place in Humor Category Winner Leigh Anne Jasheway of Eugene, Oregon "The First Time's Always the Worst" The first mammogram is the worst. Especially when the machine catches on fire. That's what happened to me. The technician, Gail, positioned me exactly as she wanted me (think a really complicated game of Twister - right hand on the blue, left shoulder on the yellow, right breast as far away as humanly possible from the rest of your body). Then she clamped the machine down so tight, I think my breast actually turned inside o...
1 comment
Read more

A Week After Surgery

Katie went back to the surgeon yesterday to have her foot checked.  It was the first time we saw the stitches.  When we saw her after surgery, her foot was already wrapped up in three inches of gauze and it's been wrapped like that ever since. The doctor decided that the sutures were not quite ready to be removed. There are stitches in the side of her foot where they inserted one of the screws.  The surgeon told us that she has to be very, very, very careful not to put her foot on the ground.  Any pressure at all could cause the screws to shift or break and that would be very, very, very bad. They knew we were going out of town for the wedding this weekend.  In order to protect her foot as much as possible, she was put in a hard cast.  It will come back off on Monday so they can check the sutures again.  This cast has a very limited time to be signed! Katie may not get to have a lot of people sign her cast  but she currentl...
Post a Comment
Read more