UNDERESTIMATED . . .The Snake in the Mangroves. The human encounter with nature drama that has taken place over the past 2 days has made me realize that you cannot underestimate the total lack of reasonable observational logic that some people display. I received a call from a friend here on Bonaire yesterday afternoon, 23 July, 2013, concerning a Dutch family who were touring the mangroves in front of Kon Tiki restaurant when they spotted a large 4 to 5 meter snake. It was described as being “yellow and brown”. Quite concerned about the danger, the father took video and hastily get his small children back in the car and they sped off. I notified Stinapa director, Ramon DeLeon about this most feared possibility of yet another invasive predator, another one that is totally overmatched with their prey animals’ ability to escape. Plus their reproductive potential reminds me all too well of the damage that Lionfish are doing to our reefs as well as the rest of the Caribbean’s reefs. Aruba is having a losing battle with Boa Constrictor that was most likely released as “overgrown pets”, which likely attributed to the success in the introduction and spread of the lionfish as well, and the Boa is now destroying the birdlife on Aruba. I gave the report full confidence about the authenticity and was weighing the likelihood of which species of large constrictor snake that Bonaire might have to deal with. A snake is about as easy to identify as almost any large vertebrate animal to at least the classification level of “snake.” Now, did it belong to Boa Constrictor species that is doing all the damage on Aruba, or could it be Burmese Python that is devastating the Florida Everglades and which are now thought to number in the hundreds of thousands, as they eat their way through terrestrial vertebrates, like birds, as well as aquatic life such as native alligators and aquatic mammals. Ramon’s reply sounded upbeat in his remark to me this afternoon after checking out the report. “Big tree floating. Just another day in the office..” meaning that we here on Bonaire did not have to deal with another ecological disaster created by man. Footnote: This could all too easily have been true, because there are still a few human behaviors that are not totally covered under government regulations. For example, in the first 6 months of 2003, the city of Tampa Bay, Florida imported 7562 “pet” lionfish through the “Pet” trade industry and there still are no regulations, anywhere in the U.S., to the importation of questionable “pets”. Must we, as Humans, be totally regulated in order to keep this planet reasonably habitable?
Posted on: Thu, 25 Jul 2013 11:30:17 +0000
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