To keep the mice bait from dropping all the way to the ground, where it could be eaten by other animals or attract insects as they rot, researchers have developed a flotation device with streamers designed to catch in the branches of the forest foliage, where the [brown tree] snakes live and feed.So, they spent more than a decade... doing what? Designing parachutes for dead mice? (Paging Senator Paul.)
February 23, 2013
Dead baby mice to be dropped, one by one, by hand, from U.S. military helicopters in Guam.
"U.S. government scientists have been perfecting the mice-drop strategy for more than a decade with support from the Department of Defense and the Department of the Interior."
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Remember, at least 40 cents of every dollar spent on this we borrowed from the Chinese, and obligated our children to repay......
At least they aren't dropping dead babies.
Congresscritter Ben Johnson when last queried had no problem with this experiment as long as Guam remains untipped over. That's right, "untipped over" was the eminent gentleman's exact phraseology.
Why neonatal mice, and why one-by-one? Other than that, it all makes sense.
They spent a decade waiting for the crows to die, apparently the snakes killed the remaining objection to collateral damage.
I lived on Guam for seven years (1992-9) and helped set up a one-acre "exclosure" on Andersen AFB that was supposed to be snake-proof and serve as an environment where the Guam rail, a ground-dwelling bird, could be re-introduced. It didn't work all that well.
In seven years, I saw one (ONE) live snake. It was on my car. They tend to avoid humans but they have, indeed, decimated the bird population. When the birds were gone, the snakes turned to things like lizards. Last I heard, many snakes weren't able to grow big enough to reproduce.
They definitely are a problem. Just not sure how much money should be spent on eradicating them at this point, since the damage has been done to Guam's wildlife. Best IMHO to focus on reducing their spread to other islands.
Drodent (dead rodent) strikes?
For half the tax money they've wasted over the years, I'd be happy to retire and take the mice there personally. You want tree placement? No problemo.
Mickey Mouse was worried about his marriage to Minnie.
Things just didn't seem right at home.
One day he came home early.
There he found Minnie on the sofa...with someone else.
"You're fuckin' goofy!" Mickey shouted.
Maybe they could get some of Gore's mythologically dead polar bears and drop them. I'd be willing to do that, too. Half price offer remains open.
This operation actually has a point. If we could just stay out of things to begin with...
Played a lot of golf on Guam at the Andersen AFB course. If you hit your ball in the jungle, you just left it there. Too many unseen things moving around in there.
How many billions did they spend on this 'project'? I mean it took them a DECADE, TEN YEARS, to make a mice parachute? Why not just use a trot line and hook, you know like they use to fish for catfish?
For that price you could PAY the people of Guam to go out with bats and kill allot of the snake population each year to keep it down.
No wonder America is going bankrupt. I see where some of the sequestration cuts could be made!
A Snake buy back.
President says cutting 85 Billion dollars a year from our spending will bring about armageddon.... but we still have the money to dose dead mice with tylenol and parachute them into the jungles of Guam to try and kill a snake.
Priceless.
1. Two million fucking snakes.
2. Cost to fly helicopter to carefully drop one dead mouse into trees at a time 2,185.00 an hour for fuel and maintenance costs.
3. Cost per hour for a crew of 5 Heroes Who Serve with apparantly no other vital military function - 240 an hour.
4. Cost to important, prep dead mice, rig them in mouse parachutes....Unknown.
Yes, this is a pittance compared to the money Bush spent on nation-building his Noble Iraqi and Afghan Freedom Lovers...or Obama's pandering with free Obamaphones...
But still!!
Just because both Republicans and Democrats are like drunken sailors putting lapdance after lapdance on their credit card - doesn't mean it doesn't have to be paid off.
The obvious problem is that poluticians themselves do not have to pay off those debts. Other people, and their kids and grandkids will...
President says cutting 85 Billion dollars a year from our spending will bring about armageddon.... but we still have the money to dose dead mice with tylenol and parachute them into the jungles of Guam to try and kill a snake.
Priceless.
1. Two million fucking snakes.
2. Cost to fly helicopter to carefully drop one dead mouse into trees at a time 2,185.00 an hour for fuel and maintenance costs.
3. Cost per hour for a crew of 5 Heroes Who Serve with apparantly no other vital military function - 240 an hour.
4. Cost to important, prep dead mice, rig them in mouse parachutes....Unknown.
Yes, this is a pittance compared to the money Bush spent on nation-building his Noble Iraqi and Afghan Freedom Lovers...or Obama's pandering with free Obamaphones...
But still!!
Just because both Republicans and Democrats are like drunken sailors putting lapdance after lapdance on their credit card - doesn't mean it doesn't have to be paid off.
The obvious problem is that poluticians themselves do not have to pay off those debts. Other people, and their kids and grandkids will...
They could introduce a few king snakes.
Snakes that eat snakes... and if there are too many of them, eat each other.
Like the old woman who swallowed the fly.
I don't know that king snakes would work for tree snakes, though. Maybe mongooses? Roadrunners? Spend a couple billion developing Roadrunners that live in trees?
No No No!
Mickey Mouse was getting a divorce.
He was on the stand being questioned by the Judge.
Judge: So, Mr. Mouse, I undertand that you want a divorce on the grounds that you're wife is insane?
Mickey Mouse: No your honor.
Judge: Well why are you here?
Mickey Mouse: I want a divorce because she's fucking Goofy!
The Snake buy back was a disaster... because (as it always happens) people brought in non-working snakes... snakes that were too old to hunt, pot smoking, long hair peace snakes... vegetarian snakes... snakes that were registered to vote... and other snakes that were no threat to birds.
clearly a place for a sequester cut
Proxmire?
So this isn't a DOD screw-up, it's an Agriculture screw-up.
That's so much better.
It's going to end up somewhere between the Australian experience with cane toads and the Arabian Nights tale of The Sultan And The Mice.
So, they spent more than a decade... doing what? Designing parachutes for dead mice?
In government, there is no incentive to do anything efficiently.
Again, the private sector could have done it for less time and much less money. +Jobs.
In the intervening ten years quad rotor copters swept the world markets making possible the delivery of one dead mouse with snake-seeking capability, programming that allows it calculate the situational environment most beneficial for tree-entanglement and snake-proximity as factors. Snake elimination kits can include a small temporary heater to warm the dead mouse above ambient temperature upon landing to make it more visible to snakes. The copter need not detach when the mouse is swallowed thus assuring the death of the snake one way or the other.
All kidding aside, the brown tree snake has wreacked havoc, a real eco disaster. No one would be laughing if they made it to Hawaii and they are lucky it has not happened yet.
"Dead baby mice to be dropped, one by one, by hand, from U.S. military helicopters in Guam."
The Sequester will mean 2% fewer mice dropped. The horror, the horror.
This is an obvious effort to keep women from enlisting the armed services.
Maybe this was a civilian cover story for a secret military exercise -- practice parachuting dead pig fetuses onto our Islamist enemies in the next war.
Gahrie--
Nonetheless, I think we can both agree that Minnie was fucking goofy.
Do wild snakes eat dead mice?
When I worked at a pet store, we sold frozen mice. But most snake owners wouldn't buy them because they said their snake wouldn't eat the mouse unless it was warm and moving.
My snakes eat newly dead mice that are warm. Some people warm up the mice they buy frozen and then snakes will eat them. My one snake won't eat a mouse that isn't white, or at least mostly white or light gray (she won't eat a mouse color or black mouse). Some people might find it useful to wiggle the warm mouse.
Some snakes will eat mouse *sausages*...
I sincerely hope that they practiced with dead baby mice to see if wild snakes would eat them if they were dangling in a tree from a snagged "parachute."
If only Guam could produce a St. Patrick.
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