Scientists have dropped 2,000 dead mice injected with painkillers onto the U.S. territory of Guam in hopes of killing off an invasive species of brown tree snakes, which officials claim have been costing the island millions of dollars in damage and commercial losses.
On Sunday, Dec. 1, the dead rodents were floated down on tiny cardboard parachutes onto the Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, CNBC reports. The latest rodent invasion is part of an $8 million U.S. program that was approved back in February to rid the island of the snakes and try and save the exotic native birds that they have been feasting on, as well as electric substations that the snakes have been crawling into, causing around 80 power outages a year that have cost the South Pacific Island "as much as $4 million in annual repair costs and lost productivity," as the Interior Department estimated in 2005.
"Every time there is a technique that is tested and shows promise, we jump on that bandwagon and promote it and help out and facilitate its implementation," Tino Aguon, acting chief of the U.S. Agriculture Department's wildlife resources office for Guam, told NBC station KUAM of Hagatna.
The brown snakes are very sensitive to acetaminophen, the active ingredient in the over-the-counter painkiller Tylenol, and will die after eating just 80 milligrams, which is only one-sixth of a standard pill containing the drug. They are also quite fond of mice.
In addition to the parachuted mice, officials have been employing snake traps, snake-sniffing dogs and snake-hunting inspectors to help control the brown tree snake population, though they have proved difficult to control.
