Clay Davenport
Cerebral Nomad
McALESTER, Okla. (AP) -- A snake belonging to a species that has wreaked environmental havoc in Guam was found in a cargo box sent from that country to the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant.
The 3 1/2-foot brown treesnake was discovered earlier this month hanging from the side of a pallet inside a military cargo box. Three workers saw the snake, knocked it off the pallet and killed it with a board, plant spokesman Mark Hughes said Monday.
The snake, which is native to the South Pacific, was accidentally introduced into Guam after World War II. Abundant prey and lack of natural predators have caused it to flourish and decimate other animal species, damage agricultural operations and cause power outages by climbing onto electrical lines. The snake is also mildly venomous. They can be as dense as 13,000 to a square mile in Guam.
"This was our first brown treesnake," Hughes said. "As we receive numerous containers from overseas, we are acutely aware that non-native species may have hitched a ride and are always on the lookout for such instances."
The men who killed the snake searched for information online and thought it was probably a brown treesnake, Hughes said. The snake was put on ice and shipped to Gordon Rodda at the Fort Collins Science Center in Colorado.
"We don't think it happens very often," said Rodda, a research biologist who has been studying brown treesnakes for 18 years. "It just happens more often than we'd like it to. ... Most cases, we just don't know. Most cases, somebody runs a truck over it and nobody notices."
After Rodda identified the snake, he sent it to the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii, where it will be preserved.
Rodda said he knows of only one other time a brown treesnake has been confirmed on the U.S. mainland. That snake was found in Corpus Christi, Texas, inside a cargo box from Guam in 1993.
"It's not the ones we catch that we're worried about," Rodda said. "It's the ones that got away."
Winter in Oklahoma would probably kill the brown treesnake, Rodda said. Florida and the Gulf Coast are more likely habitats.
Government officials put a lot of time and money into keeping the snakes out of the continental United States, Rodda said. Because of military operations on Guam -- an island infested with the species -- there is always a chance the snake could sneak a ride somehow. Thousands of traps are set and sniffer dogs hunt for the reptiles in cargo boxes.
"There's a lot of effort being done to keep this from happening, but nothing's perfect," Rodda said.
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The 3 1/2-foot brown treesnake was discovered earlier this month hanging from the side of a pallet inside a military cargo box. Three workers saw the snake, knocked it off the pallet and killed it with a board, plant spokesman Mark Hughes said Monday.
The snake, which is native to the South Pacific, was accidentally introduced into Guam after World War II. Abundant prey and lack of natural predators have caused it to flourish and decimate other animal species, damage agricultural operations and cause power outages by climbing onto electrical lines. The snake is also mildly venomous. They can be as dense as 13,000 to a square mile in Guam.
"This was our first brown treesnake," Hughes said. "As we receive numerous containers from overseas, we are acutely aware that non-native species may have hitched a ride and are always on the lookout for such instances."
The men who killed the snake searched for information online and thought it was probably a brown treesnake, Hughes said. The snake was put on ice and shipped to Gordon Rodda at the Fort Collins Science Center in Colorado.
"We don't think it happens very often," said Rodda, a research biologist who has been studying brown treesnakes for 18 years. "It just happens more often than we'd like it to. ... Most cases, we just don't know. Most cases, somebody runs a truck over it and nobody notices."
After Rodda identified the snake, he sent it to the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii, where it will be preserved.
Rodda said he knows of only one other time a brown treesnake has been confirmed on the U.S. mainland. That snake was found in Corpus Christi, Texas, inside a cargo box from Guam in 1993.
"It's not the ones we catch that we're worried about," Rodda said. "It's the ones that got away."
Winter in Oklahoma would probably kill the brown treesnake, Rodda said. Florida and the Gulf Coast are more likely habitats.
Government officials put a lot of time and money into keeping the snakes out of the continental United States, Rodda said. Because of military operations on Guam -- an island infested with the species -- there is always a chance the snake could sneak a ride somehow. Thousands of traps are set and sniffer dogs hunt for the reptiles in cargo boxes.
"There's a lot of effort being done to keep this from happening, but nothing's perfect," Rodda said.
Link to Story