Guam is a 250 square miles island in
the Pacific Ocean, the largest island among the more than 2,000 islands in the
region of Micronesia. This island is
about 1,500 miles east of the Philippines, 1,500 miles south of Japan, and
3,800 miles west of Hawaii or to be precise, Guam is located at 13.444304
latitude and 144.793732 longitudes on the world’s map. From an aerial view, Guam’s shape looks like a
soaked sock floating in a washing machine. This tropical island paradise has a reasonably
warm and humid climate, which is more comfortable during December to April due
to trade winds. In addition, Guam has beautiful
seascapes with coastal fringing reefs and various topographies. People can see the magnificent view of the
tropical, warm ocean with its countless blue-aqua-green waves from the coastal
plains or heights above the coasts. These scenic attractions bring in more than
one million tourists annually to Guam. The
natives’ culture adds to Guam’s Garden of Eden paradise setting. The Chamorro people are the natives of
Guam. They are known for their latte
stone houses, which are houses elevated by two-pieces stone pillars curved from
coral blocks set in two parallel rows of 4 to 6 stones, which can weight up to
60,000 pounds. These people customs are
that of sharing. They share food, material items, and labor when needed. These
customs strengthen kinship and friendship. In the past, Guam’s paradise forests
had many colorful, tropical singing birds and people weren’t bothered by flies
and mosquitoes, because the island didn’t had any until Spaniards introduced
them in the 1600’s. This Eden island
ecosystem did face difficulties.
Guam faces annual typhoons and in
World War II, Japan and the U.S. fought for the island and some forests got
leveled by naval artillery fire. However, the island’s wildlife recovered from the
typhoons and the war. After the U.S.
regained Guam in 1944, the war was over for the people of Guam, but another war
and catastrophe for the island’s ecosystem has just begun. By 1948, up to 42%
of Guam’s land was used for military bases.
There were busy streams of supplies coming from Papua New Guinea. A popular story has it; a pregnant female
brown tree snake infiltrated a plane from New Guinea to Guam. Although, it was more likely that many brown
tree snakes came over to Guam from hiding in derelict vehicles and equipment
that were dumped in New Guinea during World War II. This snake in the Garden of Eden paradise scenario
will not end well for Guam.
The brown tree snake is a mildly
venomous snake, but never the less venomous. An adult brown tree snake can grow
to be between 3 feet and 9 feet. According to Oxford Journals of science, being
at 9 feet, a brown tree snake can harm or kill chicken, puppies, and small
children. Unlike other snakes, the brown
tree snake is willing to consume carrion and organic material. It has been
recorded that this snake have eaten dog food, chicken bones, raw hamburger
meat, maggot-infested carrions, paper towels, ribs, betel nuts, dog placentas,
and used feminine hygiene products. The females of this snake specie can store
sperm in her for years, making them ideal colonizers. Also, these snakes are
nocturnal and arboreal, meaning that they’re active at night and lives in
trees. Like a spy, the brown tree snake has successfully infiltrated Guam. It is using the cover of night to move about
and armed with a chemical weapon, it’s venom; these serpents are ready to
declare war on paradise.
On Guam the brown tree snake had no
competition or predators, so the tree snake population grew exponentially. The
birds of Guam never dealt with a predator and didn’t know how to deal with this
snake. The tree snake feed on everything
on the island. The juvenile snakes feed
on lizards, while adults feed on birds, bats, and rodents. By the 1960’s wildlife authorities noticed
that a third of southern Guam was absent of birds, and by the late 1970’s two-thirds
of southern Guam had no birds. At first,
it was thought that the birds were killed off by pesticides and diseases
brought by mosquitoes. No one knew that
the brown tree snakes caused the birds’ disappearances, because the snakes were
hard to detect due to them being nocturnal and arboreal.
Fast forward to present day time. Like
good soldiers and killing machines, the brown tree snakes have caused the
extinction of 10 of 12 Guam’s bird species and 2 of 3 bat species. These snakes
also decimated the island’s populations of lizards, small rodents, and some
domestic animals. Due to the loss of
many birds and bats, cascading effects have developed. Without the birds and
bats to pollenate plants and spread seeds; the recruitment of those plants have
decreased. In addition, since there are
no birds preying on spiders, the spider populations has exploded in numbers. At
present, the human population on Guam is about 200,000. The brown tree snake army is over 2 million,
out numbering people 10 to 1. The scenario
seems to be right out of a science fiction horror movie. Guam is a real bad place to be if you have a
fear of spiders or poisonous snakes.
The serpent army has started
invading human dwellings to attack and terrorize people. The brown tree snakes caused black power
outages by crawling on powerlines so often; the local people call them “brown
outs.” There is even a story of an eight
feet long tree snake crawling out of a toilet and into a child’s crib and
biting the child. There are many cases where the brown tree snakes crawl into
people’s homes and target small children sleeping between adults or their older
siblings and biting them multiple times. People are fighting back with various
tactics.
At first, the military deployed
trained dogs to sniff out snakes and their handlers armed with a stick for
killing the brown tree snakes. Then
modified crawfish traps were deployed with live mice as baits. The mice weren’t
harm, since they were in compartments that cannot be reached by the brown tree
snakes. At one time, people used feral
pigs and cats in hope that they would eat the snakes. That was a bad tactic, since pigs and cats are
among the worse invasive species to introduce into fragile habits like islands.
These animals feed on the same preys that the snakes eat. Worst, is that pigs also feed on plants and
create mud wallows that would destroy Guam habitats. Don’t worry; the United
States government has decided to send paratroops reinforcement to battle the
brown tree snakes. In 2013, BBC news reported that U.S. gave $8 million dollars
a year to fund a project that parachutes 2,000 dead mice per day stuffed with Tylenol,
which is a poison to brown tree snakes onto Guam’s trees via helicopters in
order to curb the snake population. Although,
this idea was claimed to be very effective, the plan isn’t aggressive enough to
significantly curb a population of 2 million snakes. Some areas on Guam have up
to 13,000 snakes per square miles. It would take almost 3 years to kill 2
million tree snakes this way, given that they don’t reproduce at all. Now, if 200,000 mice were parachute per day,
then there would be hope. But the smallest clutch of 3 eggs from the current
snake population per year would create 3 million new snakes. People need to be more aggressive in their
efforts in fighting the brown tree snake, otherwise paradise will be lost.
Works Cited
Gordon
Rodda, Thomas Fritts, and David Chiszar. “The Disappearance of Guam’s Wildlife.” Oxford
Journals. Bioscience Vol. 47, No. 9 (Oct 1997). Pp. 565-574 http://www.jstor.org/stable/1313163
Accessed 23 March 2018. Web.
Haldre
Rogers et al. “Effects of an invasive
predator cascade to plants via mutualism disruption.” Nature Communications
volume 8, Article number: 14557 (2017). http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14557
Accessed 13 February 2018. Web.
Jerick
Sablan. “More funding to eliminate brown tree snakes.” USA Today: Pacific Daily
News. Aug. 26, 2015. http://www.guampdn.com/story/news/2015/08/25/more-funding-eliminate-brown-tree-snakes-0826/32037271/ Accessed 13 February 2018. Web.
“US drops
2,000 mice on Guam to curb snake population.” 5 December 2013. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-25247927
Accessed 13 March 2018. Web.
U.S.
Department of Agriculture: Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Wildlife
Services. “Targeted Aerial Application
of Acetaminophen for Brown Treesnake Control on Guam. “ June 2011 http://www.aphis.usda.gov/regulations/pdfs/nepa/PreDecisionGuamAerialToxEAJune2011PublicVersion.pdf Accessed 13 March 2018. Web.
Jade Boyd. “Snakes
minus birds equals more spiders for Guam.” Rice University. September 14, 2012 http://news.rice.edu/2012/09/14/snakes-minus-birds-equals-more-spiders-for-guam-2/
Accessed
13 March 2018. Web.
Geography of
Guam. http://www.guampedia.com/geography-of-guam/ Accessed 23 March 2018. Web.
Culture of
Guam. http://www.everyculture.com/Ge-It/Guam.html Accessed 23 March 2018. Web.
“Invasion Of
The Tree Snakes And Other Coming In.” Newsweek. July 27, 1997. http://www.newsweek.com/invasion-tree-snakes-and-other-coming-174366 Accessed 29 March 2018. Web.
Thomas Hall.
“Operational Control of Brown Tree Snake on Guam.” Vertebrate Pest Conference
Proceedings, 1996. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.bing.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1022&context=vpc17 Accessed 29 March 2018. Web.
Larry Clark
et al. “Efficacy, effort, and cost comparisons of trapping and acetaminophen-baiting
for control of brown tree snakes on Guam.” Human–Wildlife Interactions
6(2):222–236, Fall 2012. http://www.aphis.usda.gov/wildlife_damage/nwrc/publications/12pubs/clark122.pdf Accessed 20 March 2018. Web.
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