Actually a bit of history is in order here. I was born in Hawaii (Oahu, Aiea Naval Hospital.just above Pearl Harbor) long before it became a state and when they still grew sugar cane and pineapples there. And yes, there were mongoose's even then. What happened is that there never were snakes in Hawaii (although that is a real possibility now with the Brown Vine Snake from Guam almost certainly getting in.and finally giving the mongoose a job), but there were a lot of rats around that came in on the shipping industries back. Someone had the bright idea that if they brought in the mongoose, it would extirpate the rat population. Unfortunately, the mongoose and the rat have opposing activity schedules.the rats are mostly nocturnal and up all night when the mongoose sleep and the mongoose is diurnal and active during the day (hence why everyone see them running around everywhere) when the rats are all curled up and tucked away. That's not to say that some overlap occurs during the crepuscular hours of dawn and dusk and pity the poor rats that are active when the mongoose are.certain death there. However, not enough of that takes place, so now there are both and overburden of rats AND mongooses.both bringing in their own problems (as in mongooses love bird eggs and have contributed to the decline of the few native birds left in the islands. I would point the reader of this message to a book done back in the 70's titled "The Day it Rained Cats in Borneo" for an entertaining and easy to understand treatise on why these kinds of thing usually go awry. In any event, there are still lots of rats and mice in Hawaii as well as many, many mongooses (which are almost certainly impossible to get rid of as well). As usual, this island ecology has suffered from well intentioned intervention by man. As for the Virgin Islands, I suspect they suffered the same reasoning, even if they did at one time have a few snakes as well. Once those are gone, you again have the rats, mice and mongooses all living it up in relative harmony. Putorius and the Magnificent 7 [Posted in FML 6259]