The brown snake is arboreal and feeds on birds, so what rocket scientists decided money could be wasted on dead mice and a rental chopper?

Someone with a real fine sense of the absurd.

Thanks for finding my misplaced decimal. Of course, I used the maximum density for the whole island, is it not customary in government projects to paint the most dire picture in order to ensure the maximum funding?

And they’ll probably need that $10 million and more, “since the mice (coming in at 40 cents each plus shipping)” includes only the procurement costs for the mice. I read the article in “Stars and Stripes” about the same subject. That article avoided mention of the per capita cost of the mice but highlighted the delivery method (which this Discover item misses) because of the military slant.

The 200 tylenol-stuffed mice in the original carpet-bombing were hand-dropped from a helicopter in order for the mice to be snagged in the forest canopies where the snakes live. I imagine that future drops will be contracted to civilian firms that will probably use civilian helicopters the usual operating costs of which are about $400 hourly at full amortization not counting flight personnel. Military helicopters would simply be too expensive and dangerous for such a task.

That 40¢ a mouse is peanuts compared to the costs of delivering them where the snakes can easily get them

So regardless of an assumption I made for comedic purposes and the misplacing of a decimal point, it looks like the eventual cost of this particular eradication might still be in the neighborhood of $10 million, or more. And there is no assurance that the species can or will be eradicated. It only takes two snakes (a male and a female) to start the whole thing over again, not to mention the continued casual importation of new snakes in inbound goods cargo, which is how they got there in the first place.

The best they can hope for is to reduce and control the snake population using the methods above. Complete eradication would simply cost too much.

Thanks for the note, sorry for that confusion. I fixed the post to reflect your comment. Thanks, all for commenting and reading!

Jen

First of all, the article says the snakes can be found at densities UP TO 12,000 per square mile. The only way you get to 2.5 million snakes would be if the entire island averaged that density rather than maxed out at that density.

Secondly, even if there were 2.5 million snakes on the island. At 40 cents a dose for the mice, that still only works out to $1M not $10M.

Rhamphotyphlops braminus also is not native to Guam. It is found throughout Asia and Africa and most likely arrived on Guam when people did. You find them in the US also, usually in potted plants (hence the common name “flower pot snake”.)