And No Birds Sing: The Story of an Ecological Disaster in a Tropical Paradise

In the 1960s Guam's bird population began to plummet; by the '70s, American zoos had begun a captive breeding program to save some species from extinction. Jaffe, the environmental correspondent for the Philadelphia Inquirer , reported on the program at the Philadelphia Zoo and followed the story to Guam. His is a chilling environmental detective story and an involving tale of scientific fieldwork. During the '80s, biologists Bob Beck and Julie Savidge discovered the cause of the birds' decline--predation by a brown tree snake that had been brought to Guam from the South Pacific after WW II. Snake expert Tom Fritts, arriving in Guam to study this predator, tracked snakes all over the island, finding possibly 12,000 per square mile. In legions the snake, Boiga irregularis , caused power outages and attacked people, puppies and just about every form of life. In 1992 Congress passed a bill supporting a project aimed at reviving the bird populations on Guam. Other islands in the Pacific, including Hawaii, have been alerted to the dangers posed by the brown snake. Photos. (Apr.)