The community is invited to help Asan Beach Park become a safe place for native birds to return by removing brown tree snakes from the area.
The National Park Service is inviting residents to become citizen scientists with a kickoff event on Saturday at Asan Beach Park. The event is from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Brown tree snakes were accidentally introduced to Guam in the 1940s. Since their introduction, these snakes have caused the devastating loss of Guam’s native forest birds and lizards.
Today, Asan Beach Park presents a unique opportunity to take advantage of its natural barriers – the ocean on one side and Marine Corps Drive on the other – to attempt to slow the reinvasion of snakes and hopefully allow native birds to return to the park, a release from the National Park Service states.
“To accomplish this, Guam’s citizen scientists are needed to help remove snakes. Citizen science is when members of the public voluntarily participate in the scientific process. At Asan Beach Park, we will investigate the effectiveness of natural barriers to prevent snake reinvasion,” the National Park Service said.
The community is to welcome to come out to learn about the project, brown tree snake hunting, capture, and removal, native plant restoration, and artificial nest box installation to facilitate the return of Micronesian starling or såli.
National Park Service staff will also provide a cultural history of Asan Beach Park.
After enjoying sunset, biologists will provide headlamps and flashlights and lead participants in the search to find, capture, and remove snakes around the park. For those interested in becoming citizen scientists, there will be a sign-up table to help with the ongoing removal of snakes from the park.
This project is a joint effort between the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, Friends of Islan Dåno’, and the local community.
For any questions, email [email protected] or visit nps.gov/wapa/learn/nature/brown-treesnake-research-and-control.htm.
This post was originally published on here
