Posted on 09/16/2010 3:46:26 PM PDT by billorites
Dead mice packed with acetaminophen, strapped to pieces of cardboard and dropped from helicopters may help control one of the big headaches for the Pacific island of Guam – the brown tree snake.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture last week began dropping the expired rodents packed with 80 mg of the generic equivalent of Tylenol on the forests of Naval Base Guam.
Since scientists discovered that the household pain reliever was deadly to the brown tree snakes, they’ve been trying to figure out how to get it to where many of the serpents live in the canopies of the island’s forests, according to a report in Stars & Stripes. The Tylenol-loaded mice are attached to two pieces of cardboard joined by paper streamers that snake exterminators hope will catch on tree branches, providing deadly snacks for snakes at those heights, according to the Stripes report.
The aerial attack on the tree snakes is designed to augment current trapping systems, which are placed around ports and airports to prevent the snakes from hitching rides to other Pacific islands such as Hawaii and causing the same ecological nightmares they’ve been responsible for on Guam.
"The brown tree snake traps that you see around Guam are actually the most effective trap for catching snakes in the world," USDA Assistant State Director Dan Vice told Guam Newswatch.
"Most of the traps that people see however are sitting on a fence or on a port. And they're targeting the few snakes that might get to that fence."
So the mouse bombs have begun falling on the jungle forests, where the USDA says there can be as many as 20 brown tree snakes per acre, one of the highest snake densities recorded anywhere in the world.
The USDA says brown tree snakes have wiped out...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.blogs.cnn.com ...
I think the article said they were EXPIRED rodents they were dropping.
Don’t snakes eat LIVE prey?
I doubt that this will be effective.
It will probably kill other animals and the Brown snake will slither away laughing at us.
Yep I wonder about the PETA angle too. They certainly can’t be happy about the genocide of the mice to then try to perform genocide against those snakes.
The mice are already dead when they drop them from the planes/helicopters.
“I wonder how PETA will respond to the execution of all those mice.”
Forget about the mice. What will they say about the extermination of the wonderful snakes?
Actually the overdoseee can be medicated with mucomist and save their liver.
That wasnt known in the seventies and I had to opportunity to watch a young man who drank a six pack and ate an extra large bottle of Tylenol die slowly of liver failure in a week. Nasty.
Could be worse!!!
http://anguishedrepose.wordpress.com/2010/03/25/welcome-to-ilha-de-queimada-grande-snake-island/
Five snakes per square meter. And not some wimpy brown snake. Golden Lancehaed viper, one of the most poisonous vipers on the planet!
Department of Agriculture
Secretary Thomas J. Vilsack
http://www.usda.gov
He’s another Obama lunatic.
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secrectary
EMBARGOED UNTIL DELIVERY
April 22, 2009
EPRESS GAGGLE BY
PRESS SECRETARY ROBERT GIBBS
AND SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE THOMAS VILSACK
Aboard Air Force One
En Route Washington, D.C.
4:36 P.M. EDT
MR. GIBBS: Okay, wake up, everybody. Shades down and everything back here — that’s good.
So I told you guys on the way out a little bit about what we were going to see and just about the notion that in Iowa people could — people like then Governor Vilsack and now Secretary Vilsack had done a lot of good for both the country and the state in being able to look around the corner on whether it was biofuels or in harnessing wind energy, to help with energy independence, but also to create good jobs in manufacturing facilities. And I thought I would bring him back to let you guys ask questions or talk a little bit about it.
SECRETARY VILSACK: When Maytag announced that they were going to close their plant, we indicated the community would be happy to help them transition, and we wanted them to look at new and innovative manufacturing and new and innovative businesses.
At the time we were encouraging our utility companies to expand dramatically wind energy. We provided a series of incentives similar to what the President has done in the Reinvestment Act — tax credits, grants and loans, programs of that nature.
The utility companies responded and what happened was that there was a tremendous increase in the amount of wind energy generated in Iowa, which led to companies being interested in locating their North American facilities for some foreign companies, and Midwestern facilities for some national manufacturers. So when I left the governor’s office we actually had a net increase in manufacturing jobs, in large part because of what was being done in the biofuels and in the renewable energy area.
So when I saw the President’s reinvestment proposal, it occurred to me that this was — that Iowa basically is a prototype for what could happen. If you look at state revenues today, while states are struggling, and Iowa certainly is no exception, if you look at the revenues year to date, Iowa’s revenues are slightly up, which is pretty amazing, and in large part because they have a low unemployment rate because they’re in the right businesses for this time frame.
So what you saw is happening in other communities throughout the state — in Fort Madison, in Cedar Rapids, a number of other communities. And now what will happen is that the community colleges are getting into the act. They’re creating new programs for the folks who maintain windmills, which hasn’t happened before, and now you’re going to begin to get component part manufacturers located in the Midwest.
There are 8,800 separate parts to a windmill; somebody has got to make all 8,800 parts. And they really — it’s much more efficient to have them made close to where they’re going to be put up. And the High Plains is an area where there is tremendous opportunity. And the President today talked about the high seas — that’s going to spawn additional opportunities on the East and West Coasts.
So it’s the right direction for the country, and it is a new 21st century American economy that the President is building. He’s on the right track.
MR. GIBBS: Any questions? Any questions for me?
Q Anything on the IMF 1.3 number?
MR. GIBBS: In terms of international —
Q The global economic contracting 1.3 percent.
MR. GIBBS: I think the report said the first time in 60 years. You know, it gets — we talked a lot about this obviously in the lead-up to the G20. It is why the President undertook the Recovery and Reinvestment Plan that the Governor talks about, to meet — to try the meet the diplomatic that we were going to see in demand over the course of the next two years. And I know many countries around the world have taken similar steps.
One of the things that came out of G20 in London was that we were going to watch and monitor how the global economy was doing in the later meeting in the fall, which will be held in the United States, to determine if other international actions are needed. I do think the IMF — the investment also out of the G20 and the IMF in helping countries that are largely dependent upon exports and are emerging markets so that those economies don’t undergo even — an even greater, more severe recession, providing the ability for them to get loans in order to import from, say, the United States and create jobs here is also tremendously important.
But, look, I — it is another sobering statistic in the problem that we face globally.
Q Tomorrow’s credit card — meeting with credit card executives, what is the President’s message going to be to them, I mean, obviously with the credit card reform on the Hill? What are we going to hear?
MR. GIBBS: Well, Congress is working on legislation to address this. And the President has long been a supporter of a fair, more honest, more transparent system so that if somebody gets a credit card, they don’t find that their rates go up exponentially on a certain day based on fine print in a contract that no one is ever going to read, or that we find out that certain fees — you know, interest is charged, an interest rate is charged on certain fees involved in a credit card.
So the amount of credit card debt has increased greatly in the past 10 years, and I think it’s incumbent upon this Congress and the President to address some of the deceptive practices that we’ve seen —
Q What will he tell them tomorrow?
MR. GIBBS: Well, I think he’s going to outline and go through some principles of what he would like to see and that he believes Congress can get done in order to protect the American people.
Q — a voluntary action from the credit card companies before Congress acts?
MR. GIBBS: Well, look, whether it’s foreign or domestic policy, there are always stakeholders that can take voluntary actions. But the Fed is working on finalizing some rules relating to credit cards, and the President wants to make sure that legislation codifies a lot of that, as well.
Q One more thing, Robert. Do you have anything to say about the departure of Ellen Moran?
MR. GIBBS: I addressed this earlier. I mean, look, obviously the team is incredibly grateful and thankful for the work that she’s put in over the course of the first part of this administration. I don’t know how many days we’re up to now — like, 92 or 93. It’s felt like —
Q We’re getting close to 100 days.
MR. GIBBS: Amazingly so. It’s felt more like 100 or 293 because we’ve packed it all into a short period of time. And as I said earlier, she has the incredible opportunity to go be Secretary Locke’s chief of staff, to work on a series of issues that are very important and interesting to her, continue to serve the public at such a high level. And as I said earlier, you probably get to see your kids and your family a little bit more often, which — as I said, I saw my son last night when he got up at 11:30 p.m. looking for more milk. So that was the only time I saw him yesterday. And I think it — she gets a chance to, like I said, continue public service and be able to see her family.
Q What do you make of the implication in some of the coverage that she didn’t quite fit in with a lot of the people who have been with the President much longer?
MR. GIBBS: I tend not to focus on what’s on blogs.
Q Some web sites, too.
MR. GIBBS: I guess I tend not to focus on blogs and web sites. You know, look, I mean, I think she’s — well, let’s just say I don’t believe everything I read on a computer, how about that?
Q On the cybersecurity review, when can we expect that to be released? Some people were saying last week it might be in days.
MR. GIBBS: I think they’ve completed the additional review. I think late last Friday night there was a statement on that. I’ll check on what might be forthcoming.
Q How many people worked at Maytag before the plant closed back in 2007?
SECRETARY VILSACK: There were reductions over the course of time as they downsized, but I think, if memory serves me correctly, it was over 1,000. It was their corporate headquarters. It wasn’t a single — I mean, it was their corporate headquarters and had been for over 100 years.
And so it obviously was a blow to that community. But they are coming back. And I’m going to tell you right now, this is the right course for America. There’s absolutely no question about it. The President is transitioning — his vision is to transition from an economy that was based on pollution and waste to an economy that’s based on clean energy and clean jobs. And there’s no question that with the investments we’re going to make over the next couple years, you’re going to see a lot of the kind of businesses you saw today all over the country.
Q Governor, in addition to your shared dislike of beets, did you and the President discover any other vegetables or fruits that you don’t like? (Laughter.)
SECRETARY VILSACK: As the Secretary of Agriculture, I love all vegetables and fruits. (Laughter.)
MR. GIBBS: Thanks, guys.
END
4:47 P.M. EDT
Can’t figure out why McCain, or the other ancient ones, won’t retire to a sunny island paradise ....I thought JD would be a good Senator.
Doh!
Brilliant, what a great way to kill a bunch of animals!
You talking crazy talk 'bro!
That island would make a good show for Bear Grylls.
Considering there were holdouts from the Japanese Army left over from WWII until the early 1970’s, yeah, you’d be amazed how a little rock like Guam is still pretty primitive.
Heh! “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”
He would have been, JD has his faults but disloyalty is absolutely not one of them. Persoanlly I wish KFYI would put him back on the drive time radio. After all I think McCain must have spent several million dollars just in ads run on that station.
Won’t the tylenol kill the mice?
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