A mongoose was caught last month at Kauai’s Nawiliwili Harbor; it took 12 traps to capture the wayward intruder on the Garden Isle’s leeward side. Mongooses (yes, you can also say mongeese) were brought to our islands over 125 years ago from India to help eradicate rats from the sugarcane fields.
Alas, rats are nocturnal, and the frisky mongooses are diurnal. Committees were formed; nothing changed. We should’ve brought Dracula in to rid us of rats; he works nights only. These low-rider critters do pose a threat to indigenous birds, their eggs, and other species, but they also dine on insects, rodents, and lizards. And their incredible quickness and natural ability to fend off venomous snakes make them sworn enemies of cobras; not an issue here, of course.
Mongooses are present (if not prevalent) on all our populated islands, except Kauai. Thus, a running rodent that somehow managed to slip through the ICE vice was news. Luckily, mongoose sightings are rare on Kauai, and the one found last month was euthanized and subsequently tested for rabies and other unpleasant diseases.
While mongooses seem furtive and cute darting into bushes and forests, they are not play-things. Mongooses captured as pets are illegal in the USA and elsewhere; leave ‘em be. Much like mankind, some mongooses are extremely solitary, while others form close social networks, with mothers even timing their birthing around the same time so the whole group (or “mob” as its known) can watch over the young ‘uns. The mob rules.
While “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi”, from Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book” is probably the best-known mongoose, I’m partial to the main character of the song “Mongoose” by New York’s Elephant’s Memory in 1970. A slab of psychedelic, storytelling wonder involving inventive subterfuge by the title character, it was a minor hit (top five in Chicago), but the group did back up John Lennon and Yoko Ono for a brief spell!
Just as a pineapple is neither a “pine” nor an “apple”, a mongoose (from the Hindi “muṅgūs”) is neither a “mon” (a dialectal variant of “man”) nor a “goose”, though one may appear to be a silly goose as it pilfers a musubi from your abandoned golf cart. They are complex little buggers, with research suggesting that an intricate form of mongoose communication involves sounds made that appear like vowels and consonants. But I digress; please enjoy a rodent-free day/night.
Think about it…