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De Omnibus Dubitandum - Lux Veritas

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Two thousand mice dropped on Guam by parachute — to kill snakes

By M. Alex Johnson,

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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