Chapter 1163: 1163. Driving Snakes (2/5)

Chapter 1163 1163. Snake Drive (25)

At the beginning, Li Du visually estimated that the area of ​​Shaou Island was 50 to 60 square kilometers. In fact, his estimate was a bit conservative. The total area of ​​the island is 88 square kilometers, which is a medium-sized island.

But the price is already high compared to the area.

On Australia's island sale website, there is also a large island of 250 square kilometers with a price of 150 million Australian dollars.

Li Du questioned at the beginning, why is it more expensive to buy an island with a more marginalized status and a smaller area?

The governor gave him the answer: First, this island with an area of ​​250 square kilometers is called Basel Island. It is barren, so it has been hanging out for ten years, and no one is willing to buy it.

Second, this price was the price ten years ago. If someone comes to buy it now, they will renegotiate the price, at least A$300 million or more.

However, it is estimated that Basel Island will not be sold. They have a price of 150 million and no one has come to inquire about it, let alone plan to raise it to 300 million?

In addition, Shaou Island is of great value in terms of its location.

It is located at the southeastern tip of Australia. Although it is still far away from the South Pole, there are no large islands along this line to the South Pole.

Therefore, Shagull Island can be developed and used as a supply station for supplies entering Antarctica.

Now all major countries in the world are ambitiously developing Antarctica, and they continue to send scientific research ships to Antarctica every year.

Due to many reasons such as the climate and geography of Antarctica, ships must pass through several specific routes to enter Antarctica.

Among these routes, there are two lines entering Antarctica from the west, from Cape Town, South Africa to Bouvet Island, and from Port Elizabeth via the Prince Edward Islands.

From the eastern region to Antarctica, if you don’t take the New Zealand line but take the Australian line, it usually goes from Hobart to Macquarie Island, and then enters Antarctica.

Seagull Island is located in the northeast of Hobart, and ships can only reach Hobart by passing through here, so if Li Du develops the island, this route can be changed, and scientific research ships do not need to detour to Hobart, which is more economical time.

But this is a long time ago. Now Li Du has to find a way to take root on the island, and then develop the opal mine inside.

This required a huge sum of money, and Seagull Island was hundreds of kilometers away from the nearest city, Herrick. He needed the coordination of planes and ships to replenish supplies.

In terms of aircraft, his Mi-8 is enough for the time being, and now he needs a cargo ship to transport some construction materials to the island.

This was the focus of Li Du's previous negotiations, and he asked Tasmania for support.

Bruce Nuo agreed and allocated a thousand-ton cargo ship for his use. In the next year, he can use this ship free of rent.

Both the Tasmanian government and the Australian government are willing to help him develop Seagull Island. They need a role model. Now the global real estate market is booming, but the island buying and selling market has been ruled by cold currents.

At the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, there was a wave of buying islands around the world. Many wealthy people were interested in islands and wanted to be island owners.

Later, with events such as the Mexican financial crisis, the Asian economic crisis, and the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis, the rich began to be careful and stopped spending money randomly, and the island business gradually declined.

Li Du's Sha'ou Island is the largest island sold in the global island trade in the past ten years, and it is also the island with the highest price. It is a model.

If Shagull Island is built well, it may be able to attract some rich people to renew their interest in the island.

After all, it has been ten years since the subprime mortgage turmoil of the last economic crisis, and the rich have become bolder again.

The biggest problem of Shagull Island is the large number of sea snakes. Of course, this is also because of the rich opal deposits on the island.

Li Du didn't like snakes. He didn't want the island he bought with a lot of money to develop later, only to end up with snakes crawling everywhere.

Australia attaches great importance to environmental protection, and economic development requires harmonious coexistence with the natural environment.

However, Seagull Island is far away from the mainland and Tasmania. It is usually inaccessible, and no one pays attention to it. Therefore, if he just drives away the snakes, the government has no objection.

In this regard, the Tasmanian government is willing to help. They are worried that Li Du will take an extreme approach to purify the environment on the island by beheading snakes.

There are snakes everywhere in Australia. People have been fighting snakes for hundreds of years, and they have accumulated a lot of experience and have a lot of methods.

The Tasmanian government arranged for the Bureau of Animals and the Reptile Conservation Association to help Li Du, and expel the sea snakes through biological and sonic methods.

The biological method is to plant a large number of castor plants on the island. Sea snakes hate the smell of these plants and will leave voluntarily.

The law of sound waves is to install sound wave generators in some places on the island. Snakes are far more sensitive to sound waves than humans, and can continuously emit sound waves that humans cannot feel, driving them into the sea.

There is also a large-scale injection of drugs to soak bird eggs, because sea snakes also swallow food in one bite, so a scientific research institution in Australia invented this method to deal with poisonous snakes.

Bird eggs have been soaked in medicinal liquid. The medicinal liquid is not poison, but a drug rich in progesterone and androgen. After snakes eat it, they will lose their production capacity.

It's a means of dealing with venomous snakes that the Australian government is promoting, but it's been criticized by the Reptile Conservation Society and the Nature Conservancy in its native lands.

Because the working principle of this drug is mainly to deal with female snakes, by inhibiting ovulation and changing the gonad mucus of snakes, the female snakes lose their desire to mate.

Even if they mate, the blastocyst cannot survive because there is a large amount of progesterone remaining in the body, and it can change the activity mode of the oviduct of the female snake and hinder the delivery of fertilized eggs.

This method is very powerful, and it can exterminate snakes in an area, so that they will have no offspring.

Some organizations think this is inhumane, so they criticize the government for using it. Li Du is not in charge here, he can use it whatever he wants.

In this way, he led people to Shagull Island on the front of the yacht, and a transport ship brought a large number of construction tools and snake repelling supplies to the island.

Li Du called Steve when he bought Shagull Island. After all, Steve helped him a lot in this matter.

After the call was made, a gentle female voice answered and said, "Mr. Tuchenberg has left the United States. If you have anything to do, please leave a message for me, and I will convey it to you accurately."

Li Du was puzzled. He didn't know where this buddy had gone. He had nothing important to do, so he casually introduced his situation and hung up the phone.

When they arrived at Shagull Island, the satellite phone on the ship rang, and Steve called back, and Li Du was shocked when he spoke: "Hi, Li, I'm in Antarctica..."