It’s estimated there are already hundreds of thousands of pythons, anacondas and boa constrictors breeding in the Florida Everglades. (Photo Courtesy of US Fish and Wildlife Service)
The Fish and Wildlife Service wants to stop people from bringing giant snakes into the country. Rebecca Williams reports pythons, anacondas and boa constrictors are getting a little too comfortable in the U-S:
Transcript
The Fish and Wildlife Service wants to stop people from bringing giant snakes into the country. Rebecca Williams reports pythons, anacondas and boa constrictors are getting a little too comfortable in the U-S:
It’s estimated there are already hundreds of thousands of pythons, anacondas and boa constrictors breeding in the Florida Everglades.
Ken Warren is with the Fish and Wildlife Service. He says some of the snakes can get up to 20 feet long and 300 pounds. People buy them in pet stores and some release the snakes when they get too big.
It’s become a noticeable problem in the last 15 or 20 years. But the Fish and Wildlife Service is only now starting the process to ban the importation of these snakes.
“It takes a while before you realize the threat. As soon as the threat became pronounced and identified we started to look at the various actions we could take to help get it under control.”
He says it’s getting to be a bigger problem because the snakes are eating endangered species.
Lawmakers in three states (California, Michigan, North Carolina) are considering measures to block communities from regulating the use of genetically modified seeds. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports:
Transcript
Lawmakers in three states (California, Michigan, North Carolina) are
considering measures to block communities from regulating the use of
genetically modified seeds. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah
Hulett reports:
More than a dozen states have already passed laws to prevent local
governments from banning the use of seeds that have been modified to
produce high-yield crops.
Peter Jenkins is with the Center for Food Safety. He says organic
farmers worry that pollen from genetically altered plants could drift into
their fields, and contaminate their crops.
“So, local control’s important to allow towns and counties to stake out
particular areas that should be set aside for organic or for GMO crops. In
some cases, you know, you could have zoning, or bans altogether.”
Supporters of the legislation say there are other ways to protect organic
crops from gene drift – including buffer zones and timed plantings. They
say it should be up to the federal government to regulate the use of
genetically modified seeds.
With its ability to breathe out of water and wriggle its way over land during dry spells, the media has dubbed the northern snakehead "Frankenfish." Its appearance in Lake Michigan is scary to scientists. (Photo courtesy of USGS)
A few weeks ago, a Chicago fisherman caused a stir when he found a northern snakehead fish. The discovery set off a frantic search to find out if yet another invasive species is threatening the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jenny Lawton has this report:
Transcript
A few weeks ago, a Chicago fisherman caused a stir when he found a northern snakehead fish. The find set off a frantic search to find out if yet another invasive species is threatening the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jenny Lawton has this report:
Just before Halloween, the so-called Frankenfish reared its ugly head… filled with sharp teeth… in Chicago’s Burnham Harbor on Lake Michigan. And it’s still a mystery as to just how it got there.
Although the snakehead is arare item in some Asian cuisines, there’s a more common suspicion amongst local experts and hobbyists. That snakehead was probably a pet that outgrew its tank, and instead of the traditional farewell down the toilet, it was set free in Lake Michigan. Free to eat through the Lake’s food web.
Local pet store manager Edwin Cerna says that’s why he stopped selling the fish years before they were banned by U.S. Fish and Wildlife. He remembers one day, when he was adjusting a tank, he accidentally got in between a snakehead’s lunch and its mouth.
“He bit me in the hand… made me bleed. It hurts. It’s got a nice strong jaw and that’s why it’s so dangerous because it can kill big fish, literally cut them in half. It’s almost like a big old killer whale, like a miniature version of it.”
But why on earth would anybody buy a vicious fish that can grow up to three feet long in the first place? Jim Robinett is with the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. He says he’s a fish geek.
“I gotta say, as a little fish, when you first buy them, they’re really attractive; they’re neat little animals, but they eat like crazy. They’re voracious.”
Robinett knows not to be fooled by the little guys because what happens next is the perfect plot for a B-horror movie. He says the snakehead fish grows quickly, eventually eating everything in its tank. If it doesn’t die from overgrowing that tank, its owner might be tempted to dump it into a nearby body of water where it will keep eating its way up the food chain. Robinett says that’s the fear in Lake Michigan.
“They could potentially start picking off small salmon and lake trout, which is native to these waters here, they’re not real discriminating, they’ve been known to take things as large as frogs, some small birds, even small mammals that happen to get in the way there close to shore. They’ll eat anything they get their mouth on.”
Most hobby fish don’t last long in Chicago’s cold water. But the northern snakehead is different. The snakehead is native to northern Asia, and the Lake Michigan Federation’s Cameron Davis says that makes the fish feel right at home around here.
“It’s a lot like us Midwesterners, it just kind of hunkers down and… that’s part of the problem with the snakehead is that it can live under very extreme conditions. Which means it’ll out compete those other fish, and that’s a tremendous problem.”
Snakeheads have another edge on other species. The fish guard their eggs, giving their young a better chance of reaching maturity. But perhaps the most peculiar thing about snakeheads is that they can breathe. In addition to its gills, they have an organ that works like a lung and allows it to breathe air. It’s able to live up to three days as it uses its fins to wriggle across land in search of another body of water.
But looking down into the murky waters at Burnham Harbor, Davis says we shouldn’t run screaming yet. It’s not exactly a horror film scenario.
“I don’t think that the snakehead is going to come and grab our children out of schools and eat them or anything like that. But it is a problem for those of us who like to fish for yellow perch and whitefish and some of the things that make the Great Lakes so fantatstic, could really be threatened by this fish getting into Lake Michigan.”
Other invasive species cause an estimated 137-billion dollars of losses and damages in U.S. waterways each year. Cameron Davis says simply banning the local sale of fish like snakeheads hasn’t been enough to keep the Great Lakes safe.
“We’ve got to stop imports of these kinds of fish into the United States. We can’t protect the Great Lakes unless we’re checking these things at the door when they come into the country. It’s that simple.”
Davis is pushing for the passage of the National Aquatic Invasive Species Act. The bill would allocate a total of 174-million dollars to develop new technology for identifying and eliminating the invaders if and when they arrive.
So far, local authorities ahven’t found another snakehead near the banks of Lake Michigan, but Cameron Davis says the initial find just proves how hard it is to regulate what comes into the country’s largest body of fresh water.
Standing on the dock at Burnham Harbor, Davis looks out over the dark waters and shakes his head.
“It’s just an indicator that we’re in a race against time right now. Let’s hope that if there are more than one out there, that they haven’t hooked up.”
If they have, he says, it could truly be the stuff horror movies are made of… at least, for the other fish in the Great Lakes.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jenny Lawton in Chicago.
What happens to electronics when people don't want them anymore? The economics and environmental impact of e-waste disposal weighs heavily on minds all over the globe. (Photo by Michael Manger)
China is banning the import of scrap electronics. That eliminates one place where some U.S. companies were selling broken computers and electronic junk under the guise of “recycling.” The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
China is banning the import of scrap electronics. That eliminates one place where some U-S companies were selling broken computers and electronic junk under the guise of “recycling.” The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Each year, more than 60-million desktop computers are taken out of service in the U.S. About 85-percent of them end up in landfills. But some people take their old computers, electronics and appliances to be recycled. Unfortunately, that sometimes simply means being shipped to China and other Asian countries where the electronic gear is burned to retrieve the metal such as copper and steel. Burning the electronic gear releases all kinds of toxic chemicals. Now, China’s main English language newspaper, CHINAdaily, reports the government there is banning the imports of scrap electronic goods. The newspaper reports this marks a change in the Chinese government’s policy of always putting economic conerns in front of less tangible needs such as the environment.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
It’s estimated there are already hundreds of thousands of pythons, anacondas and boa constrictors breeding in the Florida Everglades. (Photo Courtesy of US Fish and Wildlife Service)
