Animals

I was asked by a good friend of mine who's training to be a vet (and recently got one step further in doing so - hoorah!) to post some insights into the world of animals on Kosrae.

Being trained into the world of medicine and therefore human beings, although still enjoying very much all of the natural world, here's my best shot at the animal kingdom...

First up, there is a lot of surrounding water and therefore the most magical and diverse marine life I've ever seen. People say the coral reefs here are some of the best in the world, and some praise it more highly than the Great Barrier Reef. There is wide selection of tropical fish, reef fish, rays, turtles, star fish and eels which I've only seen a tiny smidgen of. Here is a picture of the card you can take diving that features most of the sea life.

The most common fish seen on land is yellow fin tuna; fishing is a common past time here and tuna is one of the most commonly caught species. I haven't yet had a go at fishing but hope to before I leave. Pole and line fishing plus spear-fishing is practiced here.

There are an awful lot of crabs on the island too. Ranging from the tiniest of crabs that live in the rock pools and mangrove channels to some very large ones. Kosraean and Mangrove crabs are the larger species and are aggressive folk - know to capture pet cats by the leg with their claw and drag them into their hole to eat them. Ah, the circle of life.

These crabs tend to hang out on the roads at night time, and scurry out the way when car headlights hit them. I saw plenty the first time I was in a car when it was dark in my first week but havent seen so many ever since, despite several more car trips in the dark. I recently found out that the crabs only tend to venture onto the roads when it is a full moon! Spooky. 

Apologies for the low tone, but this is the only picture of a crab I have managed to get. 

(The living crabs run away too quickly!)

Moving from the sea to the sky, there's an interesting array of birds here. The one I have seen the most is a Honey Eater; a very attractive small bird with a big vibrant red chest, much more towards the red of Liverpool Football Club than the reddy-orange of the Christmas robin's chest. Alas, no pictures of these either. 

Also in the sky are bats! Fruit bats. They tend to be nearby to the mango and fruit trees on the island so only in a few spots. But they're quite large and make a lovely silhouette in the sky when they fly overhead. Fortunately, the bats here do not carry rabies!

Other birds - chickens! Chickens are often seen in people's front yards and there is indeed a group of chickens (a gaggle? Please comment below if you know the collective term for chickens) out the front of where I am staying. The male of the group is frequently heard doing a classic cock-a-doodle-doo every morning, starting from about 6:30am. 

Not much chicken is eaten on the island. These chickens are more for pets and eggs rather than meat. Since they roam free, they're therefore quite active and so pretty lean. The meat from them is therefore rather tough. It also means you've quite literally got an egg hunt if you want to collect any eggs they may lay. 

There are also a few pigs on the island. I've seen some roaming free and some kept in pens. The latter are used more for producing meat but even so, bacon and pork is not commonly available. Since the pigs are kept by single families, usually in the back or front yard, the meat is used by the family not for supplying the island with pork. 

Geckos feature a lot inside buildings and on pavements/pathways. They seem very comfortable around humans and come in all sorts of sizes and colours.

And there are of course the many many bugs that seem to take a liking of my ankles and shins. There are mosquitoes, ants (red and black ones) giant black ants in the rainforest, big spiders, cockroaches (it was a good laugh one day when I opened a kitchen drawer to look for cutlery and the only thing in the drawer was a medium sized cockroach that came scuttling out. Suffice to say I took a giant leap backwards and yelped at the shock of it), flies of various designs and beetles. 

Then finally, there are the dogs and cats. Both of which are particularly sick-looking. They sure aren't all that cute and fluffy. The cats are better than the dogs, and this is the owner of Treelodge's son's cat, Whitey. He's a nice cat and he has a whale of a time trying to catch all the birds around the house.

The dogs are less appealing. They are kept as pets but also killed for meat (shudder). You can buy dog meat on the island for $20 from a family but they charge $40 to kill it. And I'm told stories of people just taking a machete to the deceased dog to cut it up and the meat is distributed still with the fur on it (wince). The dogs sadly don't get the best of lives here; as well as wondering when their time might be up, they roam the streets looking particularly dishevelled and sad. Most have limps and some kind of open wounds somewhere, often their ears. But before you start to get too sympathetic just yet; they don't treat the humans all that nicely.  When walking or cycling down the road, you're always advised to take a stick and not be afraid to bonk a dog on its head if it tries to chase, jump at or bite you. They've been the cause of several cycling accidents I'm told and several nasty injuries to people's toes. 

And this reminds me of the frogs! (This is last one, I promise). The highly dim frogs. These are quite big frogs and come out at night to sit in the road. But, unlike their sensible friends the crabs, the frogs are stubborn silly things that don't move out the way when cars approach. They like their spot so much that when being a pedestrian, flattened dehydrated frog is a frequent sight. 

Behold the zoology of Kosrae!