A couple of comments (true, I hope!!):

1. The Brown Tree Snake became a scapegoats for good old Guam Power
Authority (GPA) because of its tendency to climb power poles and shinny
along wires and sometimes touching two at a time. Poof!! No snake and no
power. GPA would then claim power outage due to snake and that became a
running excuse and joke.

2. The Chamorros (Chamorrans) are very good people and love animals to an
excess. This can easily be seen by a night cruise around Dededo, Agana,
Tumon, etc and looking at the dog packs and the amazing number of cats on
the prowl. Did they 9canines and felines) play a role in the demise of
some avian species.

3. I seem to recall that much of the research on BTS's was done at Oregon
State University and one of the things they learned early on was that the
metal bands fastened around power poles (an expensive project) didn't deter
the snakes in their route to the hot wires (one of the routes into homes
was by house electrical feeds to your meter!) because the BTS had more
success climbing the guy wires than the stout poles!!

I believe that Grant (a Tweeters fella) just returned from Guam -- it
would be interesting to hear what he saw and learned about the current
status. A major typhoon has recently devastated Guam and one of the
successes had been the Marianas Crow situation on Andersen AFB. Winds were
initially reported to 246 MPH but that was challenged by Mt Washington
weather observatory and it was determined that the windspeed indicator
failed at something around 180 and no conclusion supports the higher
number.

When discussing biodiversity/extinctions/islands an excellent read is David
Quammen's book "The Song of the Dodo". Any comments from others who have
read it??

We're going to be on Okinawa next week and I am curious as to whether the
BTS has invaded that area. We already know about the Habu that are present
but they have been there for forever(?).

Bob and Elaine
Federal Way, WA
taylorrt at foxinternet.net

----------
> From: Dennis Paulson <dpaulson at ups.edu>
> To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
> Subject: Re: brown tree snakes & children
> Date: Saturday, February 28, 1998 3:41 PM
>
> Hi again tweets,
>
> A response to a comment about a child being killed by a brown tree snake
> (BTS). I'm sure this rather slender snake couldn't kill a human of any
size
> by constriction, and I doubt if it's even a constrictor. Most
constrictors
> are heavier-bodied. In fact, I'm fairly sure it is venomous, with rear
> fangs, like our own night snake, Hypsiglena torquata, of interior
Cascadia.
>
> The BTS's scientific name is Boiga irregularis, and the related mangrove
> snake, Boiga dendrophila, is quite venomous. People have become quite
sick
> from the bite of that species (I don't know of any fatalities) and others
in
> the genus. Several people have mentioned that the BTS eats eggs, but they
> are very effective predators on the adults birds, too. The density of
BTSs
> on Guam apparently became extremely high, a classical population
explosion
> of an introduced species.
>
> Dennis Paulson