This brilliant plan shall rid the island of brown tree snakes (though not completely hopefully) and it should be beneficial to the economy of Guam (even though it is part of American territory).
These poisoning missions had always raised ethical questions on whether certain invasive species are a nuisance but in reading this article I wish the mission success and that the native bird population being restored to equilibrium (the rest of the brown snake population live in plenty in the Indonesian Archipelago). Even with my support I still question my stance.
How do we define an extermination? Do we see 'going-to-be-exterminated' animals as undervalued animals or as second-class animals before human beings?
Do animals have the rights to travel freely between regions like human beings who just need to apply for a visa? When we want something gone do we result to 'the ends justifying the means' solution? So long an animal is more of the 'enemy', to what extent does our perception change for the negative?
At a religious point of view, and from biblical studies, animals do not possess a soul and as such I do value animals slightly below the hierarchy of intelligence and existence. Sorry if this hurts somebody - but in my opinion, human beings should strike a balance to everything we do, even if it means fighting fire with fire.
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Frederick
2/28/2013 02:57:02 pm
This article is about a solution to a problem that was first created by human beings. By accidentally introducing the Brown Tree Snake into Guam, the ecosystem of the military island has been deteriorating. Now they plan to introduce poison dead rats to try and control the population. One must consider the ethical implications that come with this solution. Do we have the right to destroy a species that is nuisance to us? What if other animals native to that area ingest the rats instead of the snakes? Do we have the right to have complete control over what species we want alive and which want we want dead? The topic of speciesism comes into play here. Are we more superior to all animals? One could say that we are just simply solving a problem that is hurting the rest of the ecosystem, and that the ethical implications are just simply amoral.
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Rachel
2/28/2013 04:53:37 pm
Guam is trying to diminish the population of the brown tree snakes. The attempt to cut down the population of a certain species of animal has been occurring since long ago in human society. For instance, in China in 1958, a huge population of sparrows seemed to disturb people's farming. People thought that killing sparrows woulds stop the damage of crops, because less sparrows would eat people's crops if their population decreased. Therefore people started an immense scale of sparrow hunt. The population of sparrows did decrease, but another problem which people could not think of occurred; harmful insects started to increase in population and damaged crops even more - before, sparrows ate the most of the insects, but by then, there were not enough population of sparrow anymore.
When killing and eradicating an existing species which comprise the major population of the ecosystem in the area, there might be another problems which were not expected can occur. Moreover, the snakes are not dangerously venomous, and they do not have enough power to harm human beings. Thus, rather than killing such large number of lives, the considerations to keep the population of birds in other ways (e.g. the ways to increase the mates and preservation of the birds) and keeping electrical lines away from the snakes with other solutions are highly recommended.
Is killing a large number of lives in order to save another lives appropriate?
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Min-Jun Sun
2/28/2013 08:13:16 pm
The action of trying to diminish all the brown tree snakes in Guam is an event we have to rewind about. First of all, all living species has the right to maintain their life in a certain area with it's similar species, and no other species has to right to forbid or kill them from living their life. Humans have been killing and taking over other species habitats since ages ago, and yet although we know such an action is immoral and should be stopped, but taking over habitats from other species is only increasing but not decreasing.
It is true that if we develop new land, it will make our life more comfortable and easier; but what about the life of those species who has lost their habitat and houses? will they live a comfortable and peaceful life as we do? I don't think so. 72 snakes seems not a lot of number to kill, but if we kill 72 snakes every time when we develop new land, soon the number of snakes been killed will be higher than the total population of the species, lastly causing them to extinct.
Therefore, within such an action, i strongly recommend and wish to be stopped as soon as possible, and give time and spaces for other species to live in like how we do with our homes.
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Paul
3/3/2013 12:02:44 am
This article is about eradicating the brown tree snake from the island.Brown tree snakes have wiped out most of Guam's native populations of forest birds since being accidentally introduced to the island after World War II. There is huge number of brown tree snakes in Guam.But they don't have any natural predators. Hence brown tree snakes caused several problems. However, does human have right to destroy life? All the problem was caused from human. Is it right to ascribe human's fault to snakes? Why brown tree snakes should die? Because of human? Why human artificially change ecosystem? Somehow human had been destroying and changing ecosystems for their profit and convenience. Therefore, all the ecosystem messed up. Like situation of this article. Hence, it is human's homework to find out best solution that are good for both human and ecosystem.
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Yejin
3/3/2013 08:13:30 am
I think this solution in this article will be able to help people. At first I thought that this solution is best? because snakes are livings creaturs and it's their one of the way of survival. However peoples are damaged by snakes and because of this problems, Guam can get negative effects. So finally I think killing snakes is best solution for humans.
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MinJun Kim
3/3/2013 09:35:41 am
To what extent does animal owns rights? By reading this article I thought again about the animal rights. The snake in Guam is giving extincitions to species in Guam. This is not purposed action from human. Human is the first error, because taking snakes into the Guam is wrong, and they should have thought more and planned more carefully. Although it was what human brought them but snakes are now should be disappeared. Snakes are not endemic to this environmnet. Also sankes are giving dangers to not only mice in Guam but also to birds that are living in Guam. So why should we have to think about Snakes rights for their exixtence. They are giving death to native species. This is wrong becaue taking over native animals to new species will give bad enviornment to Guam. Native species are inhabit in Guam becuase of they are needed their for Guam. So do we really have to preserve snakes existence??
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Yeonho
3/3/2013 10:03:55 am
The problem that the snake came into Guam is created by HUMAN. However, people trying to kill all of those snakes by sprinkling dead mice which contain Tylenol. It is responsible to kill those brown snakes because they do have some bad influence on the environment. This project costs like $1 million.
In my opinion people have to find something different. The problem from those mice is they could kill other animals.
So my question is: are people could use drugs to kill one species which could kill other animals as well?
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