They floated down from the sky Sunday —
2,000 mice, wafting on tiny cardboard parachutes over Andersen Air Force Base
in the U.S. territory of Guam. But the
rodent commandos didn't know they were on a mission: to help eradicate the
brown tree snake, an invasive species that has caused millions of dollars in
wildlife and commercial losses since it arrived a few decades ago…..The U.S.
has tried lots of ways to eliminate the snakes, which it says likely arrived
in an inadequately inspected cargo shipment sometime in the 1950s.
Snake traps, snake-sniffing dogs and
snake-hunting inspectors have all helped control the population, but the snakes
have proved especially hardy and now infest the entire island. Guam is home to
an estimated 2 million of the reptiles, which in some areas reach a density of
13,000 per square mile — more concentrated than even in the Amazonian
rainforests, the government says. But
brown tree snakes have an Achilles' heel: Tylenol….To Read More….
My Take – Interesting concept. In
Washington D.C. exterminators aren’t allowed to kill rats, but the government
can kill mice to kill snakes on Guam. Does anyone
besides me see a bit of cognitive dissonance here? There is something that
stands right out to me regarding this government ‘solution’ that is going to be
‘tracked’ by government wildlife workers.
If you have two million pests and only two thousand doses of poison how much
good is that going to do? As far as I
can ascertain they will kill two thousand - or less - snakes. What are they going to do with the other one
million nine hundred and ninety eight thousand?
How fast are they going to
breed? How many times are they going to
drop two thousand mice? How much is this
going to cost per snake? If this is
worth doing, they why not drop five million mice? Or raise them on the island – preferable sterilized
or males only - and let them go laced with Tylenol from a dozen or so locations until the snakes are seriously reduced or gone?
There are some fundamental problems. Although Guam is a very small island and can be
driven around in a few hours, it also
has some rough terrain that two Japanese soldiers hid in for twenty years. One surrendered the year before I went there and
the other one the year after I left. I don’t see
how this is going to work if they don’t go all out, and even then I wouldn't anticipate total elimination. But, then again, close
is good enough for government work. After all. They wouldn't want to kill the job!
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