Here’s the USDA web page about this. Along with the toxic mice (acetaminophen is very toxic to brown treesnakes) they’re testing or considering a number of different ideas, including snake contraception.
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/wildlife_damage/nwrc/research/bts/index.shtml
“With god as my witness, I thought mice could fly.”
– apologies to Les Nessman
Ecuador has been poisoning rats in the Galapagos Islands, as the rats are an invasive species.
So do snakes eat rats as well as mice? We may have a winning combination here…
It sounds like they are starting this near an airport to help prevent the snakes from island-hopping on aircraft, to places like Hawaii.
So they’re trying to avoid…Snakes On A Plane!
Mice with frikin’ lasers attached to their heads?
That’s just evil.
Pfff… silly, they just need to set up a state-of-the-art passenger screening system in the airport and the snakes will be discouraged from air travel altogether.
…are you pondering what I’m pondering?
They tried a test program for a bounty system. Didn’t work, as people wouldn’t pursue the snakes into the jungles, and these provided a resevoir to repopulate the areas people did successfully hunt out.
They’ve been dealing with this forever, so its probably a pretty safe bet that pretty much any solution that occurs to you after thinking about the problem few minutes has already been considered and tried. Unless airdropping mice with small parachutes stuffed with pain-killers occurs to you, in which case that hasn’t been tried, but that oversight will be remedied shortly.
Hire mercenaries.
Well, those snakes are green, but they do wear brown…trousers? I’m sure the good Sergeant can be flexible on this.
Uh, I think so MacTech, but if you fill mice with aspirin, cats won’t get headaches anymore.Narf!
Did these mice enlist willingly? Or were they drafted? Were they sent to Fort Benning’s jump school for proper training? Or will they simply be shoved out the hatch?
Anybody remember the old Michael Jackson song, Ben?
(singing)
Ben, you’re always running here and there
You feel you’re not wanted anywhere
If you ever look behind
And don’t like what you find
There’s something you should know
You’ve got a place to go
<yeah - to Guam>
(/singing)
I used to sing cadence when running the platoon…
(singing)
***C-130 rollin’ down the strip
Guam-bound mousies gonna take a little trip
Stand up, buckle up, shuffle to the door
Jump right out and shout, MARINE CORPS!!
If my 'chute don’t open wide
I’ve got another right by my side
If that 'chute don’t open round
I’ll be the first mousie on the ground
Singin’ lo right-a layeft
Lefty right-a layeft
Lo right-a left right
I love to double time***
(/singing)
Do mice sing?
Thanks. At first that mouse sounded a bit like Flipper the dolphin!
Sounds like a load of old cobras to me.
***Fighting rodents from the sky
Fearless mice who jump and die
Mice who mean just what they say
The brave mice of the Green Beret
Silver wings upon their chest
These are mice, America’s best
One hundred mice will test today
But only three win the Green Beret***
Wait, do snakes eat dead mice?