In 1867, King Kamehameha V of Hawaii received a gift from Hong Kong, 8 beautiful spotted deer, and happily released them to Molokai. What he never expected was that just 150 years later, these eight spotted deer would cause great trouble for the whole of Hawaii, and their descendants are now spread across Molokai, Oahu, Lanai, Maui and other islands, reaching a staggering 120,000 or more, making it one of Hawaii's most troublesome invasive species.
Spotted deer, also known as white spotted deer, flower deer, native to the forests of Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and India, is the most common local deer species. The abdomen is white, the body is light reddish brown, covered with white spots, and it looks very beautiful. The shoulder height is about 90 cm, the weight can reach 85 kg, and the life span is about 20 to 30 years.
Hawaii originally had only two kinds of mammals - gray bats and seals, and when The Bosnians and Europeans came to the island, they brought pigs, horses, sheep, goats, cattle, rats, rabbits and other mammals, posing a great threat to the local flora and fauna; coupled with Hawaii's important harbor transportation hub, species from all over the world were smuggled ashore with human ships, killing the island's silly and naïve native species, there was no way to escape, and one after another was constantly extinct.
According to a 2017 study published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, Hawaii and Florida in the United States have the highest number of invasive species on islands and continental coastal areas in the world, respectively.
According to experts' estimates, there are about 70,000 deer on Molokai Island, which has only 7,000 inhabitants; Maui, the second largest island, has about 50,000 deer; plus other islands, hawaii, which has a total of only 16,000 square kilometers, has at least more than 100,000 deer in this almost heavenly place, carefree, warblers and swallows.
The reason why the spotted deer is so successful in Hawaii is because the hawaiian plants, like the protozoa, are also living too comfortably, stupid without heart and lungs, and have not evolved any defense skills at all, such as thorns, poisons, etc., so that the foreign invaders such as spotted deer, wild boars, and goats are ecstatic, enjoy freely, and have to eat every day to help the ground.
In addition, there are no fierce predator predators here, the spotted deer have no pressure at all, even the childbearing does not choose the season, want to be born, which makes their development almost unrestricted, except for the coastline, nothing can stop their expansion.
This led to the huge damage to Hawaii's ecological environment by spotted deer. The nests of the birds that nest on the ground have been destroyed by them, the green leaves and shoots of various plants are also their delicious meals, and the fruits and vegetables and sugar cane of the farmers have been destroyed one by one, because they have never felt that humans are any threat, but only the kind uncle of the neighbor. The destruction of green vegetation by spotted deer has also exacerbated Hawaii's fragile environment, with soil constantly washing into the sea and leading to the degradation of coral reefs.
What's more, the spotted deer also provides food for another invasive species, mosquitoes, so that they can also develop, threatening human health and life safety; even if they die, because there are no animals to enjoy their corpses, the decomposition also has a huge impact on the fragile aquatic environment of the local area; the spotted deer also like to swing across the road, which is also a fatal threat to the driver.
Even the endemic Hawaiian plants, which are sacred to Hawaiians and vital to the local water supply, the multi-type iron-hearted wood (Hawaiian myrtle) that grows in high-altitude forests, are threatened by spotted deer. Such trees can take root in volcanic rock, reaching heights of 20 to 25 meters, and when they are surrounded by clouds, water condenses on their leaves and falls to the ground, merging into a trickle that enters the reservoir. Iron heartwood is susceptible to two fungal infections, forming scars on the bark, and previously the tree could heal these scars on its own to prevent the spread of fungal infections, but the spotted deer would bite and rub the bark, making the wound heal more and more slowly, eventually forming a fatal injury.
It seems that the invasion of the spotted deer is really a huge problem, although Kamehameha V is known as the last emperor of the Kamehameha dynasty, and is equally respected as the first emperor, but at this point he obviously made a mistake and left a huge problem for future generations.
Since the spotted deer have no natural enemies, the Hawaiian people have to reluctantly go out on their own, so the deer herd and deer hunting have always been an integral part of Hawaii's traditional culture, especially in rural areas, many families have additional refrigerators to store venison, and residents can often see their delicious children on barbecue grills. That's because a lot of deer's fat has an unpleasant taste, and the spotted deer has a much less fat than other deer, so the Hawaiian spotted deer is a very clean game that tastes somewhere between beef and lamb, mouth-watering.
However, most of Hawaii's spotted deer live on private land, and although a deer hunting permit costs only $20 a year and can be applied for online, the complicated procedures and procedures for hunting are so daunting that deer hunting is very inefficient. In addition to reaching an agreement with the landowner, each hunting hunter must be accompanied by an inspector from the Ministry of Agriculture to conduct a physical examination of the wild spotted deer to be hunted, and after passing the inspection, the inspector gives a thumbs up and says yes, and you can shoot.
A lot of people might think, great, you can finally shoot, but wait, there's another rule you have to follow, which is that you can only shoot one shot, and for humanitarian reasons, you have to make the prey immediately unconscious, which means you have to shoot at its skull. Can you do it? If you can't do it, you can only wait until night, bring military-grade night vision goggles, and even use drones to find the deer you want to hunt, quietly touch it, and shoot at the door of the head, so that it can be humanely unconscious.
Also, U.S. law allows you to provide your hunted meat to anyone, but you have to go through meat inspection to sell it. Because there is no approved venison slaughterer in Hawaii, even if there is a special commercial deer hunter who wants to sell venison, they have to transport the captured deer to the United States first, process it and then transport it back, as well as various equipment, facilities, procedures, it is easy to make venison into sky-high prices.
And the spotted deer is also part of Hawaii's traditional culture, you can't hunt wildly, triggering people's protests, so then Hawaii has a plan to build a fence in 30% of the key area to protect endangered species from the deer. The spotted deer are good jumping animals, both intelligent and persistent, and they have to build a fence nearly 4 meters high to completely stop them, which is undoubtedly a daunting investment, and it is difficult to implement.
In short, the invasion of spotted deer is now difficult for Hawaii, that is, it is easy to ask the gods to send gods, the key is that this "god" has many people like, how to send, how much to send away is very tricky, not to mention the need to negotiate with so many private landowners. Finally, there may be a legal problem, because any practice in Hawaii before it was annexed was regarded as a traditional habit and protected by law, so you can't eliminate the deer and change everyone's traditional habits.
You may find it too complicated to see here, but if Hawaii were in China, the problem would be much simpler, and foodies could return the spotted deer population to the state they were when they invaded 150 years ago. Well, you may be as stupid and naïve as the original animals and plants in Hawaii, and with the continuous improvement of material and civilization, you are now in China, and the price you pay is getting higher and higher to hurt animals and plants, even if they are not wild. This is the progress of civilization, and it is hoped that there are more animals and plants on this planet that can survive the belated goodwill of human beings.
The world is far from what you think is simple, and the simplicity of your imagination shows that you have not really understood the world, the life, the laws of the planet, nature and man.