The Place Where Nature Turned Against Itself

Guam is not like any other island. It should be, from the looks of it, a peaceful green paradise in the vast blue of the Pacific. But something happened here that changed this place forever. Guam was invaded by awful little creatures, millions of them.

Ecologists can't catch a break in this place. One time they had a cool island get together. People roasted a whole pig over a fire, laughing and talking. But when everyone stepped away for just a moment, something else decided to crash the party. When they returned, they saw it. A thick snake wrapped around the roast pig. Its eyes shimmerred under the fading fire light, scales reflecting the embers. It was eating, swallowing the chunks of pork pole. A brown tree snake. This creature wasn't supposed to be here in the first place. It's an invasive species. It crept onto a cargo ship back in the 1940s, and in the years that followed, it couldn't stop bothering the island's true inhabitants, the birds. Guam was once a paradise of chirping, singing life. Its forests were home to 12 species of birds, so the air was always filled with beautiful whistles and calls. That is until the snakes came.

They slithered through the trees, finding nests, devouring eggs, and wiping out entire generations before they could even hatch. And in just 40 years, the jungle fell silent. Out of the 12 bird species, 10 are completely extinct. The last two are barely clinging on. The Guam Kingfisher is a funny bird with a cute, long beak.

It was only saved by a lastminute effort to capture a few survivors. It went extinct in the wild, but ecologists managed to keep them in zoos for decades. And thankfully, there is great news. This year, things have improved for these guys, and now scientists released a handful of them in the jungles about 3,600 m away. Another barely saved species is a Guam rail, also called cocoa by the locals. The poor thing can't even fly. a ground bird completely defenseless. Thankfully, people relocated these guys on other islands and helped them make it. But the true horror of the brown tree snake wasn't just its hunger. It was its stubbornness. Now, most predators only eat what they need. But brown tree snakes, they stop at nothing. These guys have zero chill. They'll go for animals that are too big for them to swallow.

They'll try to eat random stuff like trash. And if they realize that they literally took a bigger chunk than they could bite, they'll just leave the leftovers to rot. It's horrifying. When researchers were trying to understand why the birds were disappearing suddenly, they gave them tiny radio transmitters to track their movements.

But every time scientists went to check on tagged birds, they kept finding the tracking signals inside the snakes or in bodies left by the snakes. Oh, and now these snakes have nothing to eat.

Millions of them. You'd think they just give up, but nope. They decided to change their diet. Rats, lizards, garbage, each other. Yep, these guys aren't picky. What's even crazier is that it was just the beginning. Birds aren't just there to sing pretty songs. They eat things like bugs and help keep nature in balance. And when they disappear, you can tell because something starts taking their place.

Spiders. Guam's spider population absolutely exploded. The place is drowning in silky webs and creepy little legs. Especially the banana spiders.

giant goldenbellied creatures that build sprawling webs bigger than anything seen on other islands or the huntsman spiders the size of a human hand. Like the name hints, they chase their prey down the island, skittering across the jungle floor and use fangs to inject venom quickly. Tiny argyle road spiders are also lurking among them. These are sneaky little thieves that steal food from their much bigger neighbors.

Sometimes they even eat those neighbors. And finally, the tent web spiders whose webs are like entire cities. They create a single mass of silk where dozens, sometimes hundreds of spiders live together. Some ecologists call them condo webs. Like some multilevel apartment complexes, these condo webs stretch from the ground all the way up to the jungle canopy. So the forest starts looking like a Halloween party. You can wrap into these things like a mummy. It became so common that hikers started carrying spider sticks, long branches used to sweep away the webs before they got caught in their faces and clothes.

Recently, in 2012, they finally decided to count all these guys. Well, you'd never guess it. from 500 to 730 million eight-legged creatures in the jungle. The island has 40 times more of them than other places nearby like islands of Roda, Tinian, and Saipan combined. And that's a low estimate because some webs are not within an arms reach. And these guys keep evolving, too. The banana spiders usually weave something called a stabilamentum. It's a zigzag pattern of thick white silk woven through the web. Though scientists aren't entirely sure why they do it.

Maybe it strengthens the web or makes them look bigger or scarier. The strongest theory is that it warns birds. The bright thick pattern tells them not to fly around here because they'll ruin everything. Oh, but on Guam, you don't have to worry about the birds at all. So now they stop decorating their webs entirely. The worst part is that no one really knows how to fix this. To protect one of the species called the Micronesian starling, ecologists built nest boxes, safe enclosed spaces where the birds could raise their chicks. To make sure snakes couldn't reach them, they installed smooth metal poles beneath called baffles. The idea was simple. The poles were too wide, too slippery. The snakes wouldn't be able to climb them. Well, that was the hope. These brown tree snakes decided to lasso the poles instead of climbing them. One snake, thin as a rope, wrapped itself completely around the metal cylinder, coiling into a loop. Then, it began shimmying up the pole. Scientists only discovered this in 2021. They've never seen a snake pull this one before. They literally refused to leave the birds alone. Humans have tried everything.

trapping them, building barriers, scouring the forest with flashlights at night, setting up fences, but nothing has worked so far. There are just way too many of those guys, and they're all too smart. Now, just so you know, the US spends nearly $4 million every year trying to control this disaster. But the only real success is a single tiny patch of land at Anderson Air Force Base. Scientists managed to drive down the snake population there using bait, but the truth is slowly sinking in. The snakes aren't leaving. Humans can send rockets to space, but this, well, this is too much. That also means that Guam Island will start looking entirely different soon. Guam's forest always felt mysterious and kind of creepy, even without the invaders.

There's no soil, no soft place to step.

Instead, it's all jagged, broken limestone. Everything is full of razor sharp rock left behind by an ancient coral reef. It was being pushed up over millions of years. Trees forced their roots into the cracks. Everything is packed with twisting and curling plants, breadfruit trees, prehistoric looking psychicads, spiky pandinus trees, and just as a cherry on top, a typhoon comes ripping through every few years, tearing it all apart. Luckily, plants usually grow back fiercely. Now, walking there is insane.

It feels like walking in the sea. though instead of balancing on waves, you're trying not to trip and gash your shins open on the sharp rocks beneath you. You have to think through every step. But now things are going to get so much worse. 70% of Guam trees relied on birds to carry their seeds, spreading them far and wide. So without the help of birds, the trees drop their fruit directly to the ground where it sits and rots, so nothing grows.

Well, perhaps the invader's rule over Guam may last forever, and soon this place won't be friendly to tourists at all. It may become one of the worst places on Earth, if it isn't [Music] already. That's it for today. So, hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your friends. Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the bright