Overheated public relations campaigns and news coverage that unquestioningly repeats a press release are not exclusive to our current era.

Take the case of the mongoose’s introduction to Hawaii. Hindsight has perfect vision and we all know what a mistake that was, but to read some of the coverage of the hype is still stunning. The mongoose was set up to be a fierce, furry savior.

In March 31, 1883, the Pacific Commercial Advertiser joined in the campaign to bring the animal to Hawaii with this description:

“He is a famous ratter, surpassing the cat or the ferret. He is described as a lively little urchin, about the size of a weasel, as having a snaky body, vicious looking claws, a sharp nose, villainous eyes and looks like ‘murder incarnate.’”

In September of that year, the owner of a sugar mill and plantation on Hawaii island brought what was reported to be the first shipment of mongoose from Jamaica to be released in his fields.

“Mr. Purvis has had an opportunity of observing just what the mongoose will do in its native home, and says that it will not molest poultry or come about the premises where people live to disturb anything, but has a perfectly insatiable appetite for killing rats,” the Pacific Commercial Advertiser reported. “These are the first mongooses ever brought to these Islands and in all probability they will increase rapidly and prove very useful in destroying all kinds of small vermin.”

By October of the following year, Hawaii newspapers were reporting wild success stories.

“In one field of 69 1/2 acres, at some distance from where the mongoose had been placed, which had formerly been disastrously rat-infested a year before, there was not found, this season, a single stick bearing the marks of recent rat bites.”

That article did concede mongoose had a taste for poultry and eggs, but assured they’d leave larger fowl alone.

By September 1885, though, no one could pretend any longer.

“Complaints come from Hilo of their killing and eating chickens and ducks by wholesale,” the Honolulu Advertiser reported. “One poor man who kept a chicken ranch as a means of livelihood has had all his fowls destroyed by these little pests, and others have lost more or less in the same way. Whatever planters may think of the mongoose, other people who have any experience of his depredations regard him as a nuisance to be got out of the way. He bids fair to become a greater curse than blessing to the country, and his coming which was applauded is to be execrated.”

Yes, there are some excellent vocabulary words to look up in that passage. Suffice it to say the mongoose was no longer seen as anybody’s clever little helper.

We’ve been stuck with them ever since.

The Kauai Invasive Species Committee has this line on its website that perfectly sums it up: “This infamous mistake was made without any scientific testing or much knowledge about mongoose.”

And we’ve fallen for the trick over and over again: the promise of a quick fix, a solution with no downsides, an idea imported from somewhere else without full disclosure of the negative consequences it wrought even in its homeland. Incomplete understanding mixed with a deep sense of frustration and the naive belief in too-good-to-be-true promises. That was then, and that is now.

3.31.1883 by Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Scribd

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.