The brown tree snake (BTS) is the quintessential invasive
species. Since finding its way to the U.S. territory of Guam in
the mid-20th Century, it has wiped out most of the island’s
native bird species and continues to devour lizards and small
mammals at an alarming rate. When they take a break from eating
indigenous wildlife, brown tree snakes like to crawl around on
power lines, leading to numerous electrical outages that disrupt
business and cost the island millions of dollars annually. Why
am I writing about such a terrible animal? What can I say;
snakes are interesting. And it’s not like these reptiles asked
to come to Guam, though they sure made themselves at home once
they arrived. Is this innocent looking little snake really the
cause of so much mayhem? Okay, fine, maybe it’s not that little.
In their native range – northeast costal Australia, Papua New
Guinea and parts of Melanesia – brown tree snakes grow to
between 3 and 6 feet in length. However on Guam, since there was
so much food available, the