![]() ![]() Spraying with lime and citric acid suddenly makes sense. Suddenly the night would be filled with banjo music. (For those who would like to move there, this is a fantasy.) What if that peaceful land were invaded by banjos, and banjos alone. Imagine a land where bluegrass music of any sort was unknown. There are those who believe nothing balances out a banjo, but these are people who don't like bluegrass music at all. In musical terms, the coquí might be a banjo in a bluegrass band, balanced by guitar, bass, fiddle and mandolin. Put a pig frog under your bed at home and you would be awake all night. ![]() Spend a night in the Okefenokee and you'll be treated to some of the loudest frogs you'll ever hear. They may be loud, but the sounds of one frog are balanced by another. Frogs, many different frogs, are part of the sound of the Caribbean. People become accustomed to the sounds of nature they know, a certain orchestration, a texture. And, at least to the ears of humans, places have their own musical ecology. The desert and rain forest are as different as Metallica and Caetano Veloso. Nature has its own music, which undergoes extreme changes from place to place. But anyone who has been forced to listen to someone else's music blaring from a boom box or a car window should be able to understand. The mayor of Hawaii County, which consists of the Big Island of Hawaii, recently asked the state for emergency funds to use lime and citric acid spraying to kill the frogs. It can reach 100 decibels - similar to a loud car horn - at a distance of a foot or two. The mating calls of the coquí, which can be heard on the Web site of Hawaii Ecosystems at Risk, is something between a chirp and a smoke alarm. Hawaii has no native amphibians or reptiles so the frog, about an inch and a half long, can flourish and disrupt the balance of species without any natural restraints.Īnd, at least in the human view, the coquí is also disturbing the balance of the soundscape. The reason is that the frog, Eleutherodactylus coquí, is that familiar ecological villain - an invasive species. But even considering the sources, this seems a wide gap in perception. That comment comes from the Institute for Biological Invasions. ''Since becoming established in Hawaii in the late 1990's, incredibly loud choruses of this medium-size Puerto Rican frog have been disturbing the sleep of Hawaiians, who have enjoyed frogless nights throughout recorded history.'' ![]() ''It is a very popular creature throughout the island and enlivens the evenings with its timid ko-kee from which it get its name'' according to a Web site that promotes the wonders of Puerto Rico (Switch to another ocean, and the ko-kee is no longer timid. When is a frog like a banjo? When it ends up in Hawaii without the rest of the band.Ĭonsider the coquí, a small frog native to Puerto Rico, where it seems to fit right in with all the other frogs and the sounds of the semitropical Caribbean. SIDE EFFECTS A Frog Brings Cacophony to Hawaii's Soundscape ![]()
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