George Fleming knows firsthand the devastating impact of the coconut rhinoceros beetle.
“I’m 68 years old, and I’ve never been more afraid than I am right now of anything,” said Fleming, general manager of Coastline Landscape and Nursery in Kunia, which maintains thousands of palm trees for construction sites.
“We are battling these things all day, every day,” he said. “We spend about $800 per acre per month in nothing but trying to deal with this beetle.”
Fleming said he’s holding his ground in the war against the coconut rhinoceros beetle, but “I’m losing the battle. It’s just a very serious thing. I can’t imagine a palm tree-void Hawaii, but I’m afraid that’s where we’re headed.”
Fleming was among those who testified Friday before the state House Committee on Agriculture and Food Systems, calling for more help in the war against an invasive species that attacks coconut trees and other palms and plants.
The committee unanimously passed House Bill 1149, which would allocate $720,000 in each of the next two years for positions and activities related to coconut rhinoceros beetle control.
Despite a nine-year, multiagency battle against the bug on Oahu, eradication appears to be unattainable here, and officials have turned to a containment and control strategy that aims to prevent the beetle from reaching the neighbor islands.
Following Friday’s hearing, committee member Rep. Gene Ward (R, Hawaii Kai-Kalama Valley) called the testimony a wake-up call. He previously was under the impression the beetle was under control, and so he asked officials point-blank whether they were winning, losing or holding their own.
“We’re losing,” replied Darcy Oishi, incident commander of multiagency Coconut Rhinoceros Beetle Response team.
Oishi said that when the insect was first detected at Joint Base Pearl Harbor- Hickam in December 2013, state and federal agencies took immediate and coordinated action. But the truth is the best tools and techniques for eradicating the beetle were unknown and required research, he said.
While decent progress was made, populations continued to grow and spread across the island. Detections of the 2-inch-long, black beetle with the distinctive rhino horn have increased in the past six months, officials said.
With hanging panel traps set across the island, high-catch areas continue to be Pearl City Peninsula, Waipio Peninsula, West Loch, Ewa Beach and Central Oahu, while there have been increased detections on the North Shore and new finds in Laie, Kahuku and Waimanalo.
Native to Southeast Asia, adult coconut rhinoceros beetles feed on emerging palm fronds, often causing enough damage to kill a tree.
The beetles, which are active at night and can fly from tree to tree from surprisingly long distances, feed on coconut, royal, date and fan palms, officials said. If their preferred food sources are unavailable, they feed on other palms and tropical crops, using their front legs and horn to dig into tree crowns and feed on the juices in the inner spear.
If the beetles alone don’t kill the palms, the fungal or bacterial pathogens that follow might do the job. According to the state Department of Agriculture, tree mortality after coconut rhinoceros beetle attack is anywhere from 10% to 50%, with dead trees becoming a safety hazard as they threaten to fall unexpectedly after their trunks rot.
Oishi said it is highly unlikely the beetle could be eliminated from Oahu without significant increases in sustained funding in the range of $5 million to $10 million a year.
Chelsea Arnott of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources told lawmakers that more research into how to manage and control the beetle is necessary.
“This is a serious pest not only threatening agricultural resources, but also our cultural and natural resources,” she said.
Justin Franzmeier of Island Foodscaping in Waimanalo agreed, saying, “It could be devastating to what a lot of people know Hawaii as.”
Shannon Alivado of the Waimanalo Agricultural Association told lawmakers they need to understand how dire the situation is.
“Just in the last six months, Waimanalo has had 14 catches,” she said. “What Waimanalo doesn’t want to do is give up. We don’t want to be the next Guam,” where the pest has devastated the U.S. territory’s coconut palms and is attacking an endangered native cycad tree.
Alivado said the coconut tree is an important symbol of Hawaii, and the tourism industry should step up in this battle as well.
“If anyone watched the Sony Open on TV, we saw coconut trees,” she said. “We saw things that represent Hawaii. So if the coconut rhinoceros beetle were to hit Hawaii and the rest of our state, that’s what we will miss and will not have the opportunity to bring back.”
In written testimony, Mark Fukui, manager of Contemporary Landscaping LLC of Waimanalo, said treatment of palms for the beetle is costly.
“The reality is only the wealthy will be available to afford control,” Fukui said. “Once coconut palms are treated, the fruit cannot be eaten. In the future eating a fresh Hawaiian coconut may be a delicacy. With the way things are going, I suspect my grandkids won’t get to try a fresh coconut and experience spoon meat or how sweet and fizzy they can be.”
Fleming, the Kunia landscape farm manager, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that the problem is worse than many people know.
“I’ve heard it estimated that there are 100,000 coconut rhinoceros beetles on Oahu. The truth is there are 100,000 in Kunia,” he said.
Fleming said his business is throwing away crippled trees each week.
“We’re reaching the point of diminishing returns,” he said. “We’re getting ready to destroy a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of trees. But we can’t sell them. We can’t afford to keep them. This is probably going to put this business out of business and put some people in the unemployment line.”
Fleming added, “If it gets into Waikiki, it’s going to look like a nuclear bomb went off. It’s going to be horrible.”
