{"id":283891,"date":"2018-09-06T06:00:03","date_gmt":"2018-09-05T20:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=283891"},"modified":"2018-09-06T06:00:03","modified_gmt":"2018-09-05T20:00:03","slug":"oia-cnmi-clear-of-snakes-as-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/oia-cnmi-clear-of-snakes-as-yet\/","title":{"rendered":"OIA: CNMI clear of snakes\u2014as yet"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_283892\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-283892\" style=\"width: 176px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Harry-C.-Blanco-176x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"176\" height=\"300\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-283892\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-283892\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Blanco<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>To date, the CNMI is free of brown tree snakes and preventing this particular invasive specie from propagating on the islands is the priority of the U.S. Office of Insular Affairs.<\/p>\n<p>According to U.S. OIA CNMI field representative Harry C. Blanco, their office is responsible for initiating programs for the eradication of brown tree snakes and coconut rhino beetles in Guam and the CNMI.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese species are under our jurisdiction\u2026 We will never eradicate all the brown tree snakes in Guam, that\u2019s why we are doing a lot of prevention here on Saipan, Tinian, and Rota. Currently, brown tree snakes have not reached our islands,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have received reports of sightings a year and a half ago and we immediately activated a task force to come here and do a thorough search. Fortunately, nothing was found,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>In terms of monitoring and preventing the entry of brown tree snakes, Blanco said there are biologists in Hawaii who are assigned to handle Guam and  CNMI issues. \u201cAside from those biologists in Hawaii, we have biologists and doctors on island who are doing a tremendous job monitoring the ports.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnfortunately, brown tree snakes in Guam are rampant as well as coconut rhino beetles as the latter are destroying all the coconuts on the island of Guam. We found a lot of rhino coconut beetles on Rota and it\u2019s good that we got there on time to contain it. We hope to continue the eradication process to completely wipe out the spread of coconut rhino beetles before they come to Saipan, Tinian, and the Northern Islands,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>A conference on invasive species will take place in Guam in November.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have active working groups that focuses not only on brown tree snakes and coconut rhino beetles but other invasive species as well. All the regional areas will be going to that meeting,\u201d Blanco said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRecently, OIC awarded the CNMI $181,000 for the coconut beetle eradication on Rota \u2026 other projects that we get grants for are Capital Improvement Projects, the corals and energizing the insular community to promote use of solar panels,\u201d Blanco added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To date, the CNMI is free of brown tree snakes and preventing this particular invasive&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":283892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26,51,10063,22577],"class_list":["post-283891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-guam","tag-insular-affairs","tag-oic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}