The Enemy...

I have expressed before my life-long hatred of non-native invasive species.  (Here.)  When I was in college I learned in my wildlife ecology classes very clearly the devastating impact brown tree snakes have had on the ecology of Guam.  My classes also showed videos of the snakes climbing through windows into baby bedrooms, and hanging out of trees like spaghetti.  You know, normal invasive creature stuff.  I therefore vowed, when I married B, that although he was joining the Navy, and although there was a military presence on the island of Guam, I was not, under any circumstances, ever going to go there.  Hmmm...  How he got me to acquiesce is a long story, but it involved him telling me there were no longer any snakes here.

Sooo.  We went on a walk between the runway and the cliffs overlooking Tarague Beach.  The fence surrounding the airfield has snake traps every so often.  We checked them out.

They're quite interesting.  Each one has a fat, furry little mouse inside.  Some were white, some brown, some black and white spotted.  The mice live in a little cage within the cage, with food and a potato for water.  They looked pretty content.

 And what did we find inside one of the traps?

Ha ha!  One of the evil tree snakes, in the flesh!  I was so excited.  He was quite tiny, but still... creepy.  Can you see his yellow beady eyes in there?  And the mouse was just hanging out safe behind him, having a good time.  I loved it.  

 I read in the paper that the USDA captures 10,000 brown tree snakes a year on Guam, and 4,000 of those are right here on Andersen Air Force Base.  I may need to tone down the anti-snake rhetoric though...  Miss M (3) has been telling people in the grocery store that she's going to take a machete and chop some snakes' heads off.