state Department of Agriculture.ILIMA LOOMIS photo

In his job as a biological control specialist for the state Department of Agriculture, Fukada studies the many insect pests that threaten to devour local crops and native forests. So it seems fitting that he would enjoy spending his free time communing with some of the plants that bite back.

Fukada has no idea how many specimens are in his collection of carnivorous plants ("I stopped updating the list," he says), but he estimates it's well over 100 species, including pitcher plants, Venus' flytraps, sticky sundews and the slime-coated butterwort ("Their Latin name means 'little greasy ones,'" he notes).

Keeping the garden well-stocked with buckets of rotting watermelon to attract flies, Fukada's fondness for pollinators leads him to free any trapped bees he might find,but spiders he scorns as "freeloaders," and if he catches any, he'll feed them to his Venus' flytraps.

Born in Kohala on the Big Island, Fukada has been fascinated by science and nature for as long as he can remember. "I was flipping over rocks as a kid," he says.

He might have inherited the passion from his grandfather, who worked as the farm manager for the University of Hawaii experimental station on Kauai and was a lifelong plant collector and horticulturist, specializing in anthuriums. Fukada developed a particular curiosity about the complex relationships between plants and insects. He graduated with a degree in agriculture from UH-Hilo and went on to earn a master's in entomology at UH-Manoa. He joined the Department of Agriculture in 1998.

In his position, Fukada is