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Tag: invasive species

  • 2,000 Doped Up Mice Dropped on Guam to Battle Snakes

    Federal officials on Sunday dropped 2,000 mice full of painkillers onto the unincorporated western Pacific U.S. territory of Guam, in order to combat the invasive brown tree snake, which has devastated the bird population in the region.

    Shortly after World War II, the mildly venomous Boiga irregularis was accidentally transported from its native range in the South Pacific to Guam, likely as a stowaway on a boat. With its only natural predators being feral pigs and mangrove monitors, brown tree snake populations reached unprecedented numbers in Guam.

    Not only have the snakes devastated populations of endemic forest species in the area, they’ve also caused thousands of power outages, have eaten pets, have terrified tourists and have envenomated small children. The aggressive-when-cornered brown tree snake, which can grow up to 9 feet long, packs a mild neurotoxin, though as it is rear-fanged (the fangs are at the back of the mouth), it’s difficult to inject a dangerous dose into an adult human. Though, the snakes are dangerous to small children, who have a lower body mass.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir-bi54vqP8

    Guam has been using acetaminophen, only 80 grams of it can kill the snakes, in attempts to eradicate the invasive species. According to Dan Vice, a U.S. Department of Agriculture official, “The process is quite simple. The helicopter is going to make low altitude flights over the forest at relatively slow speeds they’re going to be certified pesticide applicators inside the helicopter delivering the baits out of the helicopter on a time sequence.”

    The latest mice-drop is the fifth so far this year, near Andersen Air Force Base, where the U.S. Department of the Interior had estimated in 2005 that the snakes caused 80 outages and about $4 million in subsequent repairs.

    In related Guam news, two unarmed U.S. Air Force B-52 bombers entered a Chinese air defense zone on November 25, defying China’s expanding claim over an island chain in the East China Sea. The planes took off from Andersen Air Force Base, located roughly 4 miles northeast of Yigo, near Agafo Gumas.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons.

  • Tsunami Debris Still Headed to US, Just No Island

    UPDATE: Nicholas Mallos, Ocean Conservancy’s marine debris specialist, said this with regard to clarifications from the NOAA about the reports of a “Texas-sized” island: “Following the 2011 tsunami that hit Japan a tremendous quantity of debris washed into the Pacific and began heading toward North America. While this debris was initially a solid mass, NOAA is right to indicate that it is not a flotilla and has dispersed significantly in the two years since.

    Tsunami debris is still a very real threat for which we must remain vigilant. What doesn’t reach land will likely end up in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre with the myriad ocean trash already there due to our excessive use of disposable products. As a result, we’re communicating regularly with the Japanese government and environmental officials to ensure a swift response if or when debris makes landfall.”

    Main Story: In the spring of 2011, a massive tsunami/earthquake disaster struck Japan, killing roughly 15,000 and sweeping millions of artifacts and debris from Japanese cities into the Pacific Ocean.

    Earlier this year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was reportedly continuing their efforts to keep the North American coast and the island of Hawaii relatively free from debris, but artifacts like housing materials and styrofoam likely originate from the March 2011 tsunami.

    Nancy Wallace, the director of the marine debris program at NOAA, told LiveScience last March that “This has been a very unprecedented event… We just don’t know how much debris is still floating in the water.”

    The drama came to a climax this week when it was reported on multiple media outlets that an island of tsunami debris the size of Texas was on a crash-course with the West Coast.

    NOAA officials with the Marine Debris Program tried to calm the calamitous media with a blog post. “Here’s the bottom line:” they write. “There is no solid mass of debris from Japan heading to the United States.”

    The team went on, saying “While there likely is some debris still floating at sea, the North Pacific is an enormous area, and it’s hard to tell exactly where the debris is or how much is left. A significant amount of debris has already arrived on U.S. and Canadian shores, and it will likely continue arriving in the same scattered way over the next several years.”

    Essentially, there are too many unknowns and variables to calculate before anyone can make conclusions about aspects of the debris like the surface area. (“Texas”-sized, really?) Lots of debris has already arrived, anyway: at least a dock, a Japanese skiff, and 30 other items have washed up on beaches in Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, Alaska, and British Columbia. Some of those items had so much foreign marine life, they needed to be decontaminated lest we endure even more invasive species.

    Here’s some news footage from earlier this year of the cleanup efforts, which were still underway:

    [Image via Wikimedia Commons]

  • Lionfish Invasion a Disaster in the Atlantic

    The venomous lionfish, an invasive species in the Atlantic, has been multiplying to the point of becoming an ecological disaster. Graham Maddocks, president and founder of Ocean Support Foundation, says that “The lionfish invasion is probably the worst environmental disaster the Atlantic will ever face.”

    And the problem has only just begun. The lionfish, which reproduces quickly, and eats almost anything that can fit in its mouth, has long been a problem in the Caribbean. And for some time, the fish has been migrating up the eastern Atlantic coast in the U.S. Pterois, the proper name of the lionfish, is an Indo-Pacific native species, but has been recorded in the Atlantic for decades.

    The fish, which has been eating itself to fatty liver disease on the Atlantic seaboard, produces roughly 30,000 to 40,000 eggs a day, has no natural predators except for humans, and the native fish in its invaded waters haven’t yet evolved to instinctively run from it. They can wipe out 90% of a reef, and the larger ones are now being found as deep as 300 feet.

    Pterois are popular aquarium fish; Captain Picard has one in his ready room fish tank, (why would he not?), and a lionfish can now be shipped to one’s doorstep for about $75 dollars, via the mail order aquarist trade. Florida pet owners have been blamed for introducing the fish into the Atlantic, and DNA analysis has traced the linage of the invasive population to only 6 to 8 females.

    Lionfish are also good eating, but one must take care in removing their poisonous spines. Across Bermuda, there are lionfish tournaments and lionfish fries, and one can see “Eat ’em to Beat ’em” T-shirts throughout the island.

    Still, Graham Maddocks points out that eating as many lionfish as we can will not be enough to eradicate the problem. “It’s an infestation. The Atlantic Ocean is a big place, but the areas being affected are extremely important.”

    “I don’t know if we can stop the lionfish invasion. This isn’t a battle we can win, we can only maintain,” Maddocks said. “Human beings started this problem. It is our fault they are here. We have to take responsibility and try to fix or hope we can control it.”

    Image via Wikimedia Commons.

  • Cat-Sized Rats on the Prowl in the Florida Keys

    Cat-Sized rats have been showing their whiskers in the Florida Keys. These gigantic rodents are called Gambian giant pouch rats and their rate of reproduction has allowed them to overcome efforts to eradicate the creatures for the past four years. They can produce 20 offspring within nine months.

    One concern of officials in Miami is that this species could migrate to the mainland and destroy valuable crops.

    Scott Hardin, the Exotic Species Coordinator for Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, said that they “thought we had them whipped as of 2009…. In the early part of 2011, a resident e-mailed me and said he saw one of the rats. We were skeptical but went back and talked to people and [saw] there were rats that we missed.” Hardin went on to say that he “would not imagine there’s more than another couple of dozen at most. We’ve caught them all within a half-mile of each other… We think they have not moved far but they clearly reproduced.”

    Gambian giant pouch rats are from Africa and can grow up to nine pounds making them the largest rat in the world. They were imported as pets until they were banned in 2003 due to the Monkey Pox outbreak. Six or 7 animals were released on Grassy Key by a breeder in 2000-2002 and have multiplied and spread.

    (image)

    One thing Floridians have on their side is the fact that the southern tip of Florida has a growing population of giant pythons that are likely to dine on the rats.

    A few months ago a man in Brooklyn found the rat and speared it with a garden rake. But don’t be alarmed, officials think that it was just someone’s pet.

    Watch this Gambian store six walnuts in his mouth within a minute:

    Would you want one of these creatures as a pet? Do you think that they are cute?

    Some people on Twitter think so while others are baffled:

    (image)@ClassicBookworm
    Sylvia    Cute! Can I adopt one? RT @ErikLoomis: The Gambian rat has invaded the Florida Keys. …. http://t.co/NrJPwY39(image) 12 hours ago via Seesmic ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    (image)@catatonique
    steph waszak    omg want “@RL_Stine: The largest rat in the world? It’s the Gambian Pouched Rat. It can grow to three feet long! Cute? http://t.co/vX9Zo3us“(image) 20 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    (image)@JustKristi
    Kristi Barlette    Nine-pound rats?!?!?!??! http://t.co/EAJNz8dw(image) 6 minutes ago via TweetDeck ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    (image)@starchild112
    Jay B    http://t.co/CDjRwXHx This a Giant Gambian Pouch Rat, WTF a rat the size of a cat smh. Bad (cont) http://t.co/dq0X0I4q(image) 10 hours ago via UberSocial for BlackBerry ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    (image)@iPrestige23
    Stanley Wakefield jr    RT @BigBoss954: @This_Guy88 @dshow50 iPrestige23 http://t.co/4VUJWWiF < So when they get inside homes are they the worlds largest mice?(image) 16 minutes ago via Echofon ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    (image)@DearLovelies
    Love    9lb rat infestation in Florida. Yikes! Look at those things. Someone get Splinter! #TMNT! http://t.co/G7uFYZem(image) 18 minutes ago via HootSuite ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    Watch this mom play with her baby: