Well, Oz may have rabbits, but Hawaii has mongoose (-gooses? -geese?). How they got here is an interesting story of technology gone awry.

You see, along with the first European settlers to the islands came somebody else: rats. A few of them decided they'd rather be in Hawaii than on some cold leaky ship, and they got off, and did what honeymooners did, and there went the neighborhood.

So the scientists and the politicians got their heads together and said, "Damn, we got too many rats. Hey, wait a minute, don't those mongoose over in India eat rats? Or is it mongeese? Anyway, let's get some of them and our rats will be history."

Well, the mongooses came, and there were lots of mongoose honeymoons, and pretty soon there were lots of little mongeese running around the islands--but GUESS WHAT? Those old scientists and politicians had done what scientists and politicians so often do when they get together and try to make big changes to the environment in the name of progress or economics...oops, they forgot something. Just one teensy little thing.

It seems that in India the mongeeses run around all day killing rats, and that keeps everybody happy (except the rats, of course). But when the cute little guys started running around these islands, they couldn't find any rats. Not one. Why? They were asleep!

"Er, we seem to have overlooked the fact that the rats in India are diurnal and the ones in Hawaii are nocturnal. Never mind! We'll just have to try something else to get rid of the rats."

"But," you say, "what did the mongoose eat?" Ah, what a perceptive person you are! The answer is simple: In addition to rats, mongice also eat eggs. "But where are they going to find eggs in Hawaii?" Even simpler: At that time, there were thousands of birds populating the islands. Many of them made their nests on the ground, since there weren't any predators. Well, not until the mongoose, anyway. Pretty soon what Hawaii had was a lot of well-fed mongoose, a lot of well-rested rats...and a lot of extinct birds.

None of which has anything to do with Rick's tape deck, of course...unless he wants to tell this story to his students and record it!

Aloha,
Mark