Another mongoose has been captured on Kauai, the second since May.

Harbor workers captured the juvenile mongoose June 29 at Nawiliwili Harbor.

Workers at Young Bros. Ltd. spotted the animal running along a group of containers in the holding area. They trapped it under one of the containers until the Kauai Invasive Species Committee could collect it.

Project manager Keren Gundersen said the animal was humanely euthanized with carbon dioxide and sent to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Wildlife Research Center in Hilo to determine its gender and conduct other tests. The invasive species committee is working with officials on a statewide mongoose management plan.

On May 23 an adult male mongoose was captured in a trap at the Kauai Lagoons Resort in Lihue. Two months earlier the invasive species committee set 65 traps baited with coconut in the area in response to several credible reports of sightings, Gundersen said.

About 190 mongoose sightings have been reported on Kauai over the past 44 years. Of those sightings, about 90 have come in the past 10 years.

In 1976 a female mongoose was found dead on a roadside near Kalaheo.

Calls of sightings are widespread on Kauai.

"They seem pretty widely dispersed, which is disturbing," Gundersen said.

Mongooses, which are native to India, are a threat to eggs and hatchlings of endangered species such as the nene, koloa duck and hawksbill sea turtles.

In 1883, sugar plantations introduced mongooses to Hawaii, except for Kauai and Lanai, to control rats in cane fields.

The plan was ineffective because they preyed on native birds and turtle eggs instead of rats. Mongooses have no natural predators in Hawaii.

Anyone who spots a mongoose on Kauai is asked to call the invasive species committee at 821-1490.