Help Stop the Spread of Coqui Frogs on the Big Island

Coqui slayers are wanted on the Big Island.

If you have time to find the warm ponds in the Puna district, there is now a great public park with ample parking which is where I saw the advertisement. If you notice the sign posted, you can find gainful employment as a coqui slayer as a possible trade in the Puna district. What are coqui you might ask? You will find them mentioned on the Hawaii Life Buyer’s disclosure form.

They are the tiny little frogs that sound like a car alarm and usually make themselves known just as the sun begins to set. They are a very prolific sort and have managed to thrive in the dense jungle terrain prone to rainfall. They smuggled themselves over to Hawaii and have gained a foothold. They are working themselves around the island and, I have to report, they have really taken over Waipio Valley, which is right along the Hamakua Coast.

When you decide to purchase a home, if you don’t go back to the neighborhood at night you will never know what is out there. When I visited Australia, I noticed the outdoors all the time as in the vibrations of all the creatures. It gives you the immediate sense of the present moment.

You do get that sense of the wilderness when you listen to the coqui frogs because they often chirp back and forth for the duration of the night hours. It is a wild cacophony of sounds lasting until the early hours of the morning and it is inevitable. It seems they are embedded in the terrain, but it does make you feel like the place is alive.

So, on the bright side, coqui slayers may have employment forever here on the Big Island. If you are a buyer purchasing your dream home and signing your 55 page purchase contract, and all the addendums, you will run across a little paragraph mentioning them.

If the area you select is not known for coqui now, in a few years you may also be hearing the late night calls of the wild as the coqui banter back and forth in your backyard.