MONGOOOOOOOOOOOSE-Sunday 10/28

The mongoose are a Ferret type creature that were imported from India to Virgin Islands. The rats were eating sugar cane which was bad because they eat sugar cane. The rats are nocturnal and the mongooses are diurnal. Another example of man importing creatures would be in the early 1900's, the cane insects were eating the sugar cane so they imported the Crapo or "giant toad" to eat the insects which didn't work. The mongooses affected the ecosystem because they ate the other animals such as the ground lizards and the bird and turtle eggs, etc. The Least Turn Bird became endangered because the mongooses ate the eggs. In 1963 sugar cane stopped being produced. It was being produced for about 200 years, then they stopped producing it , because sugar beets were easier to use to produce the sugar. Importing a new species to a foreign land isn't always a good thing and the mongoose is a great example.
Researched and written by Brooke Ainslie