Outsiders From Plant, Animal World Threaten Fragile Hawaii Ecosystem : Environment: Islands’ native species evolved over centuries without defenses against predators and aggressive competitors. Now they are imperiled by illegal imports.

For some travelers to Hawaii’s tropical shores, the world-renowned aloha spirit has worn thin.

Cuddly little critters such as hamsters and parakeets, less cuddly snakes and lizards and various types of ornamental plants pose a tremendous threat to Hawaii’s native environment. Now state officials are cracking down on a recent flood of the illegal aliens.

Hawaii’s fragile ecosystem that developed over millions of years in isolation from other land masses includes numerous native species of plants and animals that evolved without natural defenses in the absence of aggressive competitors and predators.

If they escaped into the wild, snakes, ferrets, large lizards and predatory birds that some people keep as pets would have easy pickings in Hawaii, threatening some of the island’s already endangered species with extinction, says Larry M. Nakahara, manager of the state Department of Agriculture’s Plant Quarantine Branch.

Careful management has brought Hawaii’s flightless goose, or nene, back from the brink of extinction and expensive efforts are under way to save the Hawaiian crow, or alala, of which there are only two dozen left.

The No. 1 target in the intensified effort to prevent harmful alien species from becoming established in the islands is the brown tree snake, which has plagued Guam in the Western Pacific for the past four decades.

“The brown tree snakes climb trees and are nocturnal and would be able to go after our native birds while they are sleeping,” said Nakahara, whose agency is responsible for tracking and confiscating the illegal animals and plants. “That would set up a disastrous scenario.”

Nine bird species on Guam, including several native species, have been wiped out by the mildly venomous snakes that also go after poultry and small pets and have bitten children. They also cause frequent power outages by climbing utility poles and shorting out electrical lines.

Most of the illegal animals are smuggled here in hand-carried bags aboard commercial jets that bring in about 20,000 passengers each day, while others apparently are shipped as misidentified cargo, said Albert Lam, a supervisor at the Plant Quarantine Branch.

“If we knew how they were doing it, we’d close the loophole,” Lam said.

Airport security officers who check hand-carried bags aboard Hawaii-bound flights, he says, “are only looking for guns and weapons and not some small animal.”

The only two brown tree snakes known to reach Hawaii were dead on arrival, apparently after crawling into the wheel wells of military cargo planes on Guam and falling out upon landing here.

This year, Hawaii’s Legislature appropriated $100,000 for a program to guard against the importation of the brown tree snake. Congress also provided $100,000 to have dogs trained to detect snakes in checks of planes and ships arriving from Guam.

Lawmakers also raised the maximum fine for anyone importing or possessing a snake or other illegal animal or plant from $10,000 to $25,000. And they put more responsibility on flight crews to report any suspected illegal imports.

The new law also arms state agriculture officials with authority to obtain warrants to search the property of people suspected of harboring illegal creatures.

There have been several well-publicized amnesty programs in the past two years, allowing owners of illegal animals to avoid prosecution if they surrender the animal to authorities.

Carroll Cox of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says getting too tough on violators might have an adverse impact.

“We’re asking people not to introduce them into the waters or flush them in an attempt to evade prosecution because that’s what we’re trying to avoid,” Cox said. “The state will consider granting some type of leniency if they report them.”

A pet store employee, Marvin Blanco, was recently charged by federal authorities with smuggling into Hawaii 30 illegal animals from the Philippines and the mainland.

Cox says it was a major smuggling operation.

Among the animals seized were two electric eels, snapping turtles, piranhas and black scorpions, including one that gave birth to dozens of offspring two days after it was seized.

Clayton Matsumoto, president of Waialae Pet Center Inc., says part of the problem is constantly changing state regulations.

“The state just made a lot of things illegal that were legal last year,” Matsumoto said. “We in business don’t know whether we should sell them or not because we can’t get an answer from the state.”

Pet shops are required to get permits to bring fish into the state, but only 2,000 of the 20,000 to 40,000 species in the world are on the state’s legal list, he says.

The Audubon Society and other environmental organizations have joined in the state’s effort to raise public awareness of the damage that could be caused by alien species.

The Audubon Society has developed the Alien Species Alert Program, or ASAP, that includes slide shows, brochures, a television spot and a televised environmental quiz show for youngsters, says Sheila Laffey, who coordinates the program.

“Because of the absence of predators in Hawaii, the alien species can propagate unchecked,” Laffey said. She cited the goofy-eyed Jackson chameleon as a good example.

The chameleon is now well established in some parts of the islands, eating native snails and insects and competing with the native birds for food, she said.

The female Jackson chameleon has up to 44 babies a year once it reaches maturity. “You can imagine what will happen after just a few years,” Laffey said.

It was only after a four-year effort and much emotional debate that Hawaii’s Legislature in 1970 approved a bill allowing two non-venomous snakes, both male, to be housed at the Honolulu Zoo.

They became an instant main attraction for Hawaii residents, most of whom had never seen a live snake.

Until recent years, the finding of snakes in Hawaii was rare. Discoveries made headlines.

Hawaii’s only native snake is tiny and blind, looks more like an earthworm and eats ants and termites. There are rare sightings of venomous but shy sea snakes in Hawaiian waters.

Since the start of 1991, there have been 50 snakes either discovered at large, seized from homes or surrendered by people who said they were unaware they were illegal or unaware of the penalty they faced.

They range from small garter snakes to a 10-foot python. No venomous land snakes have been found in recent years.

Last year the bodies of two adult alligators were found, one in a canal and the other in a roadside dump.

This year there have been 200 illegal animals seized in Hawaii, including a shipment of 80 salamanders to a pet store and nine piranhas out of a shipment of 18.

The seized animals usually are turned over to the Honolulu Zoo, which arranges for their shipment to a zoo on the mainland, Nakahara said.

Animals are not the only problem. There’s a lengthy list of illegal plants.

Some plants now allowed into Hawaii are candidates for the banned list, such as miconia, a decorative tree that now infests Tahiti after its introduction there 50 years ago.

Miconia, a tree with large dark green leafs with purple undersides, was first brought to Hawaii in 1980 and sold as a house and yard plant. Miconia seeds have been spread by birds and it now grows in groves in some remote parts of the islands, crowding out the native forests, according to the Audubon Society.

Other plant pests now established are strawberry guava, kiwawe (mesquite), hale koa and banana poka, a vine that strangles native forests, the society says.

Environmentalists talk about one pest plant as though it were a crazed killer.

“The introduced shrub, criminal Clidemia hirta, or Koster’s Curse, roams like a fugitive over more than 80,000 acres in the state, terrorizing native ecosystems,” according to an Audubon Society brochure.

Nakahara believes the recent rash of illegal animal seizures and surrenders arises from greater public awareness of the threat and the greater availability of exotic pets in mainland pet stores.

Hawaii has made some big mistakes in allowing certain animals to be brought into the islands, Nakahara said.

The prime example is the mongoose, imported by sugar growers early this century to combat rats that were nibbling big dents in the sugar industry’s profits.

Unfortunately, the rats nibbled at night and the mongoose hunted by day, leaving most of the islands with a population of pesky mongoose preying on native birds and poultry.