Is what Fred says about the rats & the mongooses true?

It is true that mongooses were first brought to Hawaii to reduce the rat population. In 1883 Hawaiian farmers bought 72 mongooses from Jamaica. They hoped to repeat the success claimed by scientist W. B. Espeut. Espeut wrote a famous article about rodent control in Jamaican sugar plantations.

Unfortunately Espeut was wrong. The rats stayed and the mongooses themselves became a major problem on all but two of the islands. And the mongoose has no natural predator.

So Fred is right?

He is more or less correct about the mongoose. But the rat problem was on the plantations not the beaches. Hawaii beaches do not have a rat problem.