Explorers and Conquers Who Brought Disease

When the Europeans first explored the New World, many native populations were killed by diseases they had never had before.

Thousands of Aztec Indians died from measles brought by the Spanish explorers. The same thing happened to the Hawaiians when Captain Cook arrived from England in 1777.

The Pilgrims settled quickly into Massachusetts Bay because several local villages had been wiped out by smallpox caught from a whaling crew.

Sometimes, conquerors or settlers might have given the natives a disease on purpose! The Tatars, in central Asia, would throw diseased corpses into towns they were trying to conquer. Yuck! In North America, some Great Plains tribes were infected with smallpox by gifts of blankets, but they don't know if it was on purpose or not.

Guam and Hawaii are remote islands in the Pacific Ocean. Hawaii has no snakes (except for a small native one that's the size of an earthworm). Guam used to not have any snakes either, until:

The introduction of the Brown Tree Snake into Guam:

The brown tree snake (Boiga irregularis) is an alien species to Guam. It has killed nearly all of Guam's birds, leading them to extinction. The brown tree snake eats birds, eggs, and small animals (pets). It is about two to four feet long. They are usually found in trees and shrubs. It's hardly seen during the day but at night, the snake searches for food.

The brown tree snake has not invaded Hawaii yet, so planes arriving from Guam are always checked. The brown tree snake can stow away in shipping containers, and in aircraft. So far, seven snakes have been found at port facilities on Oahu. If this species gets to Hawaii, it will cause ecological and economic disaster, just like it did on Guam.

The introduction of the Mongoose into Hawaii:

Sometimes an alien species has been introduced to a place on purpose. This usually is to help control a harmful alien species that is already there. That is why they brought the mongoose into Hawaii. They brought the mongoose in to control the rats that had arrived on the ships. The rats were eating the eggs of native birds and eating native tree snails. The mongoose is a natural enemy of rodents in India, so they thought it would be a good idea to bring the mongoose into Hawaii to help control the rats.

What do you think happened when they introduced the mongoose? Click on the answer you think is correct.

• a. The mongoose helped control the rat population. Now there are very few rats in Hawaii.
• b. The mongoose couldn't live in Hawaii. Now there are no mongoose, but lots of rats in Hawaii.
• c. The mongoose and rats coexist, or live together. Now there are lots of rats and mongoose in Hawaii.