via USDA
It’s just a matter of time before someone uses the US Department of Agriculture dropping 2,000 dead mice attached to parachutes on Guam as an example of government waste. But would you believe they did it for economic and ecological reasons?
It wasn’t their first choice, but the USDA hopes that it’s the first effective way of eradicating an invasive population of brown tree snakes on the island. The dead mice are just bait to deliver a deadly dose of acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, to the snakes. It takes only 80 mg to kill them, which means that other predators who might eat a bait mouse would have to eat 500 of them to OD. The biodegradable parachutes are designed to get caught in the jungle canopy where the brown tree snakes live.
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It might sound unlikely, but as they’re proving in the Galapagos where they’re dropping poisonous pellets to kill invasive mice, sometimes wildlife management involves banding birds, and sometimes it involves dropping poison out of helicopters.
The brown tree snake in question, via USDA
Operation Dead Mouse Drop is part of an on-going $8 million snake-controlling program that includes building a snake-proof fence, setting up toxic bait stations and employing adorable dogs to sniff through cargo to prevent the snakes from spreading throughout the Pacific or to the contiguous United States.
Officer Grommit is on the job in Guam via USDA
Native to Australia, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea, the brown tree snake arrived on Guam in the 50s, likely as a stowaway on a cargo ship. Without natural predators the snakes have made themselves right at home. Their population has grown to between 1 and 2 million, and the USDA estimates there are 20 snakes per acre of jungle, “among the highest snake densities ever recorded.”
This tree snake boom has taken its toll on Guam’s native forest dwellers. “The snake has eliminated 10 of the 13 native birds, many lizards species, and several bat species,” according to the USDA. The flightless Guam rail (right, via USDA) is now bred only in captivity, driven to local extinction in the 1980s by the brown tree snake.
But even if the defense of wildlife doesn’t convince you, the brown tree snakes aren’t content to just ruin Guam’s forests. An average of 80 snakes also wriggle into electric substations on the island, causing power outages. The Interior Department estimates it costs as much as $4 million in annual repair costs and lost productivity.
So, sure, parachuting in thousands of dead mice from low-flying helicopters seems funny—I, for one, have thoroughly enjoyed it—but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t serious and necessary wildlife management.
