From the People Who Brought you “Blood-letting in Thailand…”

Comes the brilliant new brown tree-snake population control method: Operation Dead Mouse Air Strike!

Apparently the brown tree snake, an invasive species to Guam, has been devastating the local avian population of the island and wreaking havoc on electrical systems leading to widespread power outages. Scientists have found that acetaminophen (Tylenol) is poisonous to the snakes – assumedly during a study into why the brown tree snake death-rate from headaches, joint-pain and arthritis was so high – and have come up with the perfect 4 step solution:

Step 1: Inject dead mice with high doses of Tylenol
Step 2: Glue Tylenol-loaded dead mice to cardboard
Step 3: Drop Tylenol-loaded cardboard-glued dead mice from helicopters
Step 4: Snakes eat air-dropped Tylenol-loaded cardboard glued dead mice and die.

There’s no plan as to what’s going to be done with the hundreds of thousands of dead snakes littering the area.

All ridiculousness aside, and there’s an awful lot of it, this being a military operation, how exactly does one go about requisitioning mice for this?

Scientist: “We’ve figured out how we’re going to deal with the snakes. We’re going to need some mice.”

Requisition Officer: “So, what’s the plan?”

S: “Well, we’ve found that we can kill them with Tylenol”

RO: “But snakes don’t eat Tylenol”

S: “Not a problem. We’re putting the Tylenol in some mice”

RO: “But the snakes live in trees”

S: “Not a problem. We’re dropping the mice into the trees from helicopters”

RO: “Won’t the mice die or become crippled on impact?”

S: “Not a problem. With the Tylenol in their system they won’t feel a thing”

RO: “It seems a bit inhumane”

S: “Not a problem. We’re killing the mice first, then injecting them with Tylenol, then dropping them from helicopters into the trees”

RO: “Won’t the mice just bounce of the branches and fall to the ground?”

S: “Not a problem. The cardboard will get caught in the braches.”

RO: “The cardboard?”

S: “Oh yes, the cardboard is central to the whole plan sir.”

RO: “Is it.”

S: “Oh yes sir, see we’re going to glue the dead mice to cardboard before we throw them out the helicopter sir.”

RO: “Really?”

S: “Yes sir. The cardboard will catch on the branches so the mice stay in the trees where the snakes can get at them.”

RO: “So let me get this straight…You want to requisition mice, kill them, load them with Tylenol, glue them to cardboard and then drop them out of a helicopter over the forests of Guam so you can wipe out an entire species from the island?”

S: “That’s correct.”

RO: “Right. Sign here.”