Looking To The Simpsons For Answers

Looking To The Simpsons For Answers

In this latest edition of real world looking towards a yellow colored cartoon family for answers, we tackle the serious question of unwanted pest in an ecco system that can barely handle it. For you see, The US is planning to use poison rats to handle Guam's snake problem. 

Animal rights activists have dismissed as "absurd" and "cruel" the American government's plans to bombard Guam from the air with toxic dead mice in a bid to curtail the spread of invasive snakes.

The US air drop over the the Pacific island is due to commence in the spring, and is aimed at addressing the problems caused by non-native brown tree snakes. Having hitched a ride to the island some 60 years ago on military ships, the colony of reptiles have been deemed responsible for killing off native bird species, biting human inhabitants and knocking out electricity by slithering onto power lines.

Meanwhile, in Hawaii – some 3,000 miles away – environmentalists fear a similar invasion from the snakes, possibly through unwitting transportation in aircraft that have spent time on Guam.
But the US Department of Agriculture's plans to reduce the number of brown tree snakes in Guam – population estimates reach up to 2m – have been attacked by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta).

Martin Mersereau, director of cruelty investigations at the animal rights organisation, described the plan as a "clumsy dangerous massacre".

"Brown tree snakes did not ask to be stowaways on planes or ships and then forced to survive on a foreign island," he said.

But irrespective of how they got to be on Guam, some residents say the snakes – which are native to Australia and Papua New Guinea – are a menace.

There's no way this could go wrong, riiiiiight?

At this point, you should be wondering where your blunt object is as it's almost time for whacking day.  What I'm confused about is why the snakes can't be trapped. Apparently the mice are to be filled with acetaminophen or something like that, which you have to wonder if it's toxic to other animals. They don't exactly come out in mentioning what it does to any other wildlife that might, you know, come across a dead animal like a rat and decide to eat the easy food.

And while I don't give a shit what PETA has to say, about anything, like, ever, I do have to wonder what the long term effects on this will be.

Florida already had their situation with the release of pythons all over the place killing off all sorts of native species. They even did a mighty python hunt over the last month considering how big the problem of pythons being released into the everglades and wrecking shit up. They basically decimated the local wildlife because they have no predators there. But in true Florida fashion, it wound up being nothing more than a joke of a hunt with them only getting three dozen snakes turned in.