HILO >> Researchers say people living in Big Island communities where coqui frogs have become established are growing tolerant of the amphibians.

West Hawaii Today reports Emily Kalnicky studied 85 private properties in 12 communities across the island in 2008.

She says people are beginning to tolerate the frogs. She says they’re getting used to the coqui.

Her research measured the relationship between coqui abundance and residents’ attitudes toward the frogs.

Kalnicky studied the topic for her Ph.D. dissertation in ecology at Utah State University. Her paper on the topic appears in the December edition of Biological Conservation.

Coqui frogs reproduce and spread quickly in Hawaii because they have no natural predators in the islands. The animals native to Puerto Rico were accidentally introduced to the Big Island in the 1990s.