THAT IS THE GREATEST OF CALAMITIES.

Because of the great many calamities faced by the sugar industry in Hawaii, therefore some people think best thing is for us to import another animal larger than the Mongoose to kill off the Mongoose.

That is a great misconception, but this would cause yet even more calamities.

How? If that bigger animal was brought here to Hawaii, and released to eat all of the Mongoose, and if it does not eat Mongoose, just as the Mongoose do not eat rats [iole], then will it not eat other things? And if the Mongoose and the Rat live together, and that new animal (perhaps the Kangaroo [Kanegaru]) lives comfortably with those old-timers, then won’t the problem be exacerbated?

We come to realize that this is an animal that causes much damage, and then we decide to bring in an even larger animal, one that will kill off this Kangaroo; we import Gorillas to Hawaii nei to eat those animals, but it will not go an eat them, and goes and fights with the farmers, and they will all be killed by them and eaten up by them!

This action will be be devastating for the land and people, the importing of animals of which we really do not understand their nature and habits.

Look at Australia’s people who are trying to eradicate rabbits. Some people think that they are a beneficial animal, but in a land where that animal spreads to a great extent, it becomes a calamity for the farming industry of the land, because the farms and forests are eaten up by millions of these animals, and the people suffer.

The Government gives rewards for the killing of rabbits, but there is no end, and they forever more continue to spread.

So too has the Monarchy of Hawaii set aside exorbitant funds to kill off the rice birds [manu ai laiki], and to what avail? Everyone keeps trying to kill [the rice birds] until they get tired, and there are still millions of rice birds around.

The Government Leaders must beware of this greatest of calamities.]

[If you don’t know who the old lady who swallowed a fly is, click here.]

(Aloha Aina, 5/16/1896, p. 1)

Ke Aloha Aina, Buke II, Helu 20, Aoao 1. Mei 16, 1896.