Kahoolawe Population

The truth is that there is a shortage of quality work.

The decision to exterminate a given taxon is a significant venture that is usually only possible if the targeted population is low and inaccessible. Kahoolawe was once home to a group of kids. Launched on the Isle in 1793, a present to Chief Kahekili of Maui from Captain George Vancouver of England, these savoury hoofed animals quickly took over power, which was restricted only by the supply of sustenance.

It swallowed up the island's flora, threatened indigenous breeds and exacerbated aggravation. From 1910, many different country leaders, among them cattle breeders, the army and the state administration, fought against Kahoolawe's cows. For 80 years goat were chased in an aggressive manner - but always a few stayed too hard to find.

If controls stopped, the numbers of goingats would blow up again. After the last caprine was definitively taken out in 1993, the caprine animals were really wiped out of the whole area. The last few goesats were the most difficult to find, but the search for the foothills was crucial to the rest of the population. Like Kahoolawe, endurance is often a pivotal factor in success in eradicating disease.

It is not only large intruders that can be exterminated - small fire ant, for example, can be exterminated. The tiny ant has something in common with the goat that once pierced Kahoolawe: "It' simple to shoot 99 per cent of those ant species. It' s the last 1% that makes it difficult," says Cas Vanderwoude, Hawaii Ant Labs Director.

Its organisation provides the knowledge behind the effort to wipe out small fire ant from Maui. And as with any effort to really exterminate an infected specie, most of the work is to find the last ones. "Polls are important to understand where the ant is, how efficient the treatments are and whether the population is being wiped out," he said.

Currently, the Maui Invasive Species Committee and the Hawaii Anti Labs assume that the infected objects will be under indefinite surveillance to make sure that the small fire ante has been exterminated. In the past, the small fire ants have been treated with granular granulate insecticides that were generally designed for fire ants. This granulate could only be spread on the soil and did nothing to stop the colony of tree based ants.

Hawaiian working ant find enough nourishment in a tree that relies on absorbing bugs and other feeding resources and never has to search for nourishment on the soil. With no workmen to carry the lure back to the king in the hive, the settlement will live, multiply and invade again, as the goesats of Kahoolawe did again and again.

Hawaii has luckily devised a technique to control small firebugs on the floor and in the bush. There are only a few small fire anthill population on Maui: Although the eradication of this infestation will be a challenging task, the aim is the total elimination of the small fire tit from Maui, thanks to the HawaiiAntiLab.

Extermination is timeconsuming and costly, although the costs are insignificant in comparison to the endless costs of repressing these vermin, so that we can still live in Hawaii as we know it. According to estimates by experts, the costs of damages caused by small fire ant species on the Hawaiian Islands will top 140 million dollars if the latest trend continues.

They can help keep little fire ant in check by making sure you don't have a gift on your land. Lissa Fox Strohecker is the PR and educational expert of the Maui Infasive Species Committee. "Kia'i Moku", "Guarding the Island", is being developed by the Maui Inventory Species Committee to give information about the protection of the islands from invading flora and fauna that can endanger the environmental, economic and living conditions of the Isle.