Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Live Today
Creeping Menace
Aired September 23, 2002 - 13:56 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Each day this week we will take a special look at the creeping threat of invasion from creatures of all types, from deer, to bugs to reptiles. These species cost millions of dollars and sometimes innocent lives.
CNN's Gary Streiker reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY STREIKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The invaders are silent and secretive. But on the island of Gaum, they are not hard to find.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They will travel across the ground, and they have a certain attraction to fences.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, it's just a young one.
STREIKER: Ground tree snakes are not native to Gaum. But experts believe at least a million of them are now crawling on this island.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The snake is about your normal average size brown tree snake on Gaum. The largest one was 10.5 feet.
STREIKER: All of these snakes, according to DNA studies, descended from one female, apparently a stowaway in a shipment of military cargo from New Guinea after the Second World War.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: See, they have very prominent eyes, helps them see at night.
STREIKER: Because the snakes are nocturnal, most people here, including tourists on the island, have never seen them. But they cause frequent power failures by climbing utility poles, and many find these snakes in their homes, lurking in their toilets, sometimes trying to eat sleeping children.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Looked in his crib and he had a snake's tail wrapped around his neck and a snake's head wrapped around his leg, and he was busy, 10 months old, holding onto the crib, busy trying to pull a snake off.
STREIKER: But the snakes usually avoid humans. By feeding on wildlife, they have turned Gaum's forests into silent landscapes, wiping out ten species of birds, including the Gaum rail, a flightless bird unique to this island. Even tough survivors like fruit bats are almost gone. But scientists say this could be just the beginning of the snake's invasion.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Really people don't understand what this animal is capable of doing.
STREIKER: The biggest worry now is that snakes could escape from Guam, hiding in shipments of cargo, leaving the island by air or sea. They could destroy bird populations in Hawaii, and even many areas of the U.S. mainland.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anywhere around the Gulf Coast, Florida, the Carolinas, Alabama, they'd be quite happy and you'd never get them out of there.
STREIKER: A U.S. government program is focused on preventing the snakes from leaving Guam, using inspection teams with snake-sniffing dogs, specially designed fences to keep them out of airfields and ports and thousands of traps across the island.
Few people expect it will ever be possible to exterminate brown tree snakes on Guam. Authorities say they have reduced the numbers of snakes in high risk areas, but that hasn't stopped some snakes from reaching airports in Hawaii, Alaska, Texas and Spain, all of them reportedly captured.
And authorities admit the snakes have now apparently colonized at least two other islands not far from Guam.
Gary Streiker, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired September 23, 2002 - 13:56 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Each day this week we will take a special look at the creeping threat of invasion from creatures of all types, from deer, to bugs to reptiles. These species cost millions of dollars and sometimes innocent lives.
CNN's Gary Streiker reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GARY STREIKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The invaders are silent and secretive. But on the island of Gaum, they are not hard to find.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They will travel across the ground, and they have a certain attraction to fences.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, it's just a young one.
STREIKER: Ground tree snakes are not native to Gaum. But experts believe at least a million of them are now crawling on this island.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The snake is about your normal average size brown tree snake on Gaum. The largest one was 10.5 feet.
STREIKER: All of these snakes, according to DNA studies, descended from one female, apparently a stowaway in a shipment of military cargo from New Guinea after the Second World War.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: See, they have very prominent eyes, helps them see at night.
STREIKER: Because the snakes are nocturnal, most people here, including tourists on the island, have never seen them. But they cause frequent power failures by climbing utility poles, and many find these snakes in their homes, lurking in their toilets, sometimes trying to eat sleeping children.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Looked in his crib and he had a snake's tail wrapped around his neck and a snake's head wrapped around his leg, and he was busy, 10 months old, holding onto the crib, busy trying to pull a snake off.
STREIKER: But the snakes usually avoid humans. By feeding on wildlife, they have turned Gaum's forests into silent landscapes, wiping out ten species of birds, including the Gaum rail, a flightless bird unique to this island. Even tough survivors like fruit bats are almost gone. But scientists say this could be just the beginning of the snake's invasion.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Really people don't understand what this animal is capable of doing.
STREIKER: The biggest worry now is that snakes could escape from Guam, hiding in shipments of cargo, leaving the island by air or sea. They could destroy bird populations in Hawaii, and even many areas of the U.S. mainland.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anywhere around the Gulf Coast, Florida, the Carolinas, Alabama, they'd be quite happy and you'd never get them out of there.
STREIKER: A U.S. government program is focused on preventing the snakes from leaving Guam, using inspection teams with snake-sniffing dogs, specially designed fences to keep them out of airfields and ports and thousands of traps across the island.
Few people expect it will ever be possible to exterminate brown tree snakes on Guam. Authorities say they have reduced the numbers of snakes in high risk areas, but that hasn't stopped some snakes from reaching airports in Hawaii, Alaska, Texas and Spain, all of them reportedly captured.
And authorities admit the snakes have now apparently colonized at least two other islands not far from Guam.
Gary Streiker, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
