Hawaiian Biodiversity and Conservation Lab

10/02/2026

We currently have 6 invasive frogs (5 plus one toad) established in the Hawaiian Islands. Here are three of them, Coqui,
Cane Toad and Poison Dart frog

10/02/2026

10/02/2026

This is the Waikiki coqui frog

10/02/2026

This is a single male coqui frog calling in central Waikiki. Coqui frogs are one of the top priority invasive species for the state of Hawaii right now.

10/02/2026

I heard this frog calling in the center of Waikiki last night. All I had was my iPhone light, but was able to track it down and catch him. This morning I offered it to the feral chickens in my backyard and they enthusiastically dispatched it and ate it. I strongly feel that if we can establish a flock of chickens in the stream valley where these frogs are living at high density, this could be a big step forward in reducing their numbers!

08/06/2026

Always exciting to hear barn owl calls in the cliffs above my house, today my dog brought in an owl pellet from the backyard, suggesting that an owl had perched for a while in a nearby tree.

Owl pellets are records of predatory preference, they are tight balls of fur, bones, teeth and feathers, body parts of small vertebrates that are hard for owls to digest, so the owls regurgitate them while resting. The pellets aren't poo so don't seem to have an unpleasant smell in case you were wondering!

The owl pellets I have examined here on Oahu have had some fur and small bones but also a lot of feathers, suggesting that these owls are preying on other introduced birds like doves, chickens and bulbuls, in addition to rats and mice during their nocturnal activities.

There is a concern in areas of Hawaii where barn owls and sea bird nests overlap. Barn Owls were brought to Hawaii and introduced from California in 1958 in the hopes that they would control rats that were causing problem for agriculture production, like sugar cane fields.

08/06/2026

I saw a Hawaiian Hoary Bat last night, flitting around above a neighbor's roof line along Kuahea Street in Palolo Valley, Honolulu.

08/06/2026

Here is an invasive Coqui Frog egg mass in Palolo Valley, Oahu One of the biggest challenges to controlling this species has to do with its reproduction and development, Coqui are termed "direct" developers, which for frogs is unusual and means they skip the tadpole stage! Tiny juvenile froglets hatch and hop away to start hunting on land. This makes it hard for resource managers to find ways to control their numbers. Imagine if they required standing water, to lay eggs and provide habitat for tadpoles, this would be a population bottleneck and a spatial focus for control efforts. Unfortunately Coqui simply lack this developmental stage, instead just prefer closed canopy wet forest habitat. There may be a way to alter their habitat to make it less conducive to reproduction, OISC is looking into the idea of habitat modification.

06/12/2026

Sydney, one of the key Palolo Coqui volunteer organizers shared this pic of coqui in a Heliconia