Updated at 6:57 p.m., Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Program to safeguard Hawai'i from snakes to continue
Associated Press
The U.S. Air Force has come up with money needed to continue brown tree snake interdiction services at Andersen Air Force Base on Guam, U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye said today.The program is designed to stop the destructive snake from reaching Hawai'i.
Inouye, D-Hawai'i, said in a news release issued by his Washington office that the $1.7 million will enable the aircraft and cargo inspection and control effort to continue through September.
Officials had said that without the funding, the work of searching military cargo leaving Guam would stop May 31.
"With a substantial increase in the level of activity at Guam's Andersen Air Force Base, all reasonable steps must be taken to minimize the inadvertent introduction of brown tree snakes to Hawai'i," Inouye said.
"This is an especially important program for Hawai'i because if brown tree snakes were introduced here, it would wreak havoc on Hawai'i's fragile environment," he said.
Inouye said he also expects the U.S. Navy to make a similar funding announcement soon to ensure proper interdiction of its property and assets on Guam.
The only snakes in the Hawaiian Islands are in the zoo. None are found in the wild, and private ownership of snakes is illegal.
The brown tree snake is native to parts of Indonesia, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Northern Australia.
The snakes are connected to the extinction or local extermination of nine native forest birds and two native lizards on Guam. Snake bites account for 1 in 1,200 emergency room visits in the U.S. territory.
