First, a little background on the brown tree snake problem on Guam.
This snake was probably accidentally brought over from the Solomon Islands
in military cargo shipments immediately following World War 2. After about a
10 to 20 year period while the snake was "establishing a beachhead" near the main
naval port, it began to spread quickly over the island. Since the only native
snake is a small blind wormsnake (Leptotyphlops braminus), the
native small vertebrate fauna had evolved (or lost) whatever defenses
they had to deal with a snake predator. Almost all of the native
land birds have been extripated from the island, as well as several lizard
species. Julie Savidge was the first to document the snake's role in the decline of
Guam's loss of vertebrate fauna.
The snake's effect is not limited to animal extinctions. Raising
domestic animals (chickens, puppies, etc) has also become more challenging. Dozens
of human infants have been bitten while sleeping, apparently by snakes drawn
by an odor cue from the baby or mother. Additionally, about 100 times a year a brown tree
snake will ascend a power pole and fry itself, causing a power outage that
may span the entire island. This seems incredible until you realize that
there are 10,000 snakes per square mile...
Now here's where I came in. During the summer of 1994 I interned at the Smithsonian
Museum of Natural History as part of the MNH Research Training Program. My advisor was
Dr. Tom Fritts, who is also head of the Fish and Wildlife/Department of Interior/National Biological
Survey/Service (whatever its called now) unit that is part of the museum. He also is the chief guy
for the government's research on the brown tree snake on guam. My project while at the Smithsonian was to
try to find correlations between the snakes activity and weather (rainfall) patterns, using the
records of the snake-induced power outages as an index of snake activity.
The following summer I headed over to Guam to work with Tom Fritts' field crew.
There we opperated a trapping grid on the big navy base, ran transects at night to survey and
catch snakes, and explored small offshore islands for native lizard species. Sometimes these monitoring
efforts are criticized because they aren't directly acting to get rid of the snakes. We were also developing and testing
snake-proof barriers. These would mainly be placed around Guam's ports and airports to keep the snakes
from getting off island and established on others. One design is a solid wooden fence
topped by an electric wire. Another more temporary design that my friend and I
developed was simply an inclined mesh fence supported by rebar.
It wasn't all work, however. This is my friend and I relaxing
after a hard days work, outside our favorite beach-side bar, Tahitirama.
Suprisingly, the coolest reptile on the island was not the brown tree snake. What was? The mangrove
monitor Varanus indicus. We didn't see these very often, but it
was always a treat when we did. They just have an intelligent, curious
look that the snakes somehow lack... Judge for yourself!
First, a little background on the brown tree snake problem on Guam.
This snake was probably accidentally brought over from the Solomon Islands
in military cargo shipments immediately following World War 2. After about a
10 to 20 year period while the snake was "establishing a beachhead" near the main
naval port, it began to spread quickly over the island. Since the only native
snake is a small blind wormsnake (Leptotyphlops braminus), the
native small vertebrate fauna had evolved (or lost) whatever defenses
they had to deal with a snake predator. Almost all of the native
land birds have been extripated from the island, as well as several lizard
species. Julie Savidge was the first to document the snake's role in the decline of
Guam's loss of vertebrate fauna.
