BTS remains sent to Guam; setup concludes

The brown tree snake caught on Rota on Sep. 3 has been shipped to Guam for necropsy, with no results reported yet as of yesterday, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s Manny Igisomar, coordinator and biologist of the CNMI Brown Treesnake Program.

“The snake was shipped to Guam…so biologists [at the U.S. Geological Survey] could figure out what the stomach contents are. Maybe to give us a better idea of how old the snake is and what it has been eating,” he said.

This information could give insight into how long the snake has been on Rota, as according to him, it can be determined whether the snake “has been eating stuff from Rota versus a starving snake that may have just gotten off the boat.

Meanwhile, yesterday concluded the deployment of the additional 200 traps sent to Rota in the efforts to gauge whether the BTS was a lone snake or from a population on island, according to Igisomar.

There are now 40 traps set at Rota’s airport and 206 at its seaport and surrounding areas, according Igisomar.

He said the setup phase of operations concluded with yesterday’s deployment of all 40 traps.

In an interview with Manny Pangelinan, acting secretary of the Department of Lands and Natural Resources, he said traps were “strategically set” on recommendation from U.S. Fish and Wildlife.

He said that monitoring, trapping, and surveillance to ensure the brown tree snake was the lone one on Rota involved the joint efforts of USGS, USFW, the CNMI’s Division of Fish and Wildlife, as well as Rota’s Mayor Office and their DLNR office.

“Our target is to determine with high certainty that there is no other BTS there. If it takes us three months, we will continue to do three months of monitoring, trapping, and surveillance,” he said.

He said there is “always a chance” that operation may be expanded; however he noted focus has been on setting up traps.

The snake was discovered on Sept. 3 by DFW’s BTS K-9 handler Shewln Cabrera with the help of Robert Ulloa of CNMI-DLNR, according to Adam Knox, USGS’ Rapid Response Team coordinator.

“The snake was found at the Rota Seaport, suggesting that it may have come in on a private or commercial seagoing vessel, but we are looking into all potential modes of incursion,” he said.

He said that night searches with high-powered lamps are being done from 6pm to 10pm by rapid response searchers and biologists.

He described brown tree snakes as “cryptic,” nocturnal, and difficult to see, which adds to the challenge of finding them, but noted that the trapping and search methods being deployed have been developed over years of research and use in Guam.

Over time probability estimates will be prepared on whether there is a snake on Rota, according Knox.

“A large response to the Rota snake is warranted to help prevent the establishment of snakes and the repeat of the ecological disaster [in] Guam,” he said.