Slashdot Mirror
Large Island Declared Rat-Free in Biggest Removal Success (nationalgeographic.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: A remote, freezing, salt-spray lashed paradise for wildlife has been completely cleared of rats in the largest rodent eradication of all time, the South Georgia Heritage Trust (SGHT) announced this week. Rats are smart, adaptable, and hungry. For all these reasons, they can be incredibly voracious predators when people accidentally introduce them to remote islands, where the local animals lack evolved defenses to rodents. They have flourished even on an island as harsh and cold as South Georgia, which is so far south that it hosts penguins, elephant seals, and fur seals, as well as massive permanent glaciers.
"There are no trees, there are no bushes. All nest on the ground or underground in burrows," says Mike Richardson, Chairman of the SGHT Habitat Restoration Project Steering Committee. Such nests are easy pickings for rats. The rats -- brought to the island by whalers and sealers as early as the late 18th century -- ate the eggs and vulnerable chicks of seabirds, including albatrosses, skua, terns, and petrels. They also threatened two birds with extinction that are found nowhere else in the world: the South Georgia Pipit -- a tiny speckled songbird -- and the South Georgia Pintail, a brown duck.
The rat eradication was a massive, arduous undertaking, costing more than $13 million and taking nearly a decade. More than 300 metric tons of poison bait was dropped on the island by helicopter in three separate trips during the Austral Summers of 2010-2011, 2012-2013, and 2014-2015. Poisoned rats tend to head underground to die, Richardson says, limiting the damage caused to birds like gulls that might have otherwise eaten the poison-tainted carcasses.
"There are no trees, there are no bushes. All nest on the ground or underground in burrows," says Mike Richardson, Chairman of the SGHT Habitat Restoration Project Steering Committee. Such nests are easy pickings for rats. The rats -- brought to the island by whalers and sealers as early as the late 18th century -- ate the eggs and vulnerable chicks of seabirds, including albatrosses, skua, terns, and petrels. They also threatened two birds with extinction that are found nowhere else in the world: the South Georgia Pipit -- a tiny speckled songbird -- and the South Georgia Pintail, a brown duck.
The rat eradication was a massive, arduous undertaking, costing more than $13 million and taking nearly a decade. More than 300 metric tons of poison bait was dropped on the island by helicopter in three separate trips during the Austral Summers of 2010-2011, 2012-2013, and 2014-2015. Poisoned rats tend to head underground to die, Richardson says, limiting the damage caused to birds like gulls that might have otherwise eaten the poison-tainted carcasses.
In principle, stronger species replacing weaker ones is what evolution is about. Who are we to exterminate the species that succeeded? Even if we played some initial role in introducing them, it's their own fitness that got them to great numbers. Maybe intelligent successors of hardy rats will do archeological research on slashdot archives long after humans offed themselves of perished in a natural disaster. In the meantime, rat meat is eaten in a lot of cultures and rats can obviously be raised in great numbers without intense agricultural practices. If reduction in numbers is desired, opening these islands to commercial trapping/hunting seems less wasteful than dropping lots of poison.
I hope it's clear that the villain in this story was not the rats.
There was no villain in this story at all.
Humans accidentally introduced a species, not on purpose. Humans then spent a lot of money and effort to understand and eradicate that species with minimal impact to the environment. Your "cost" is expected to be entirely negligible over time and no permanent damage has occurred.
Unless Dr Evil actually has his lair hidden on that island there's no villains to be found.
And from the final report, this paragraph is interesting:
Over 4,600 inert devices, including chewsticks and tracking tunnels, were deployed and checked as part of the survey. The very best rodent detection experts were also brought in especially: three highly trained 'sniffer' dogs and their two skilled female handlers. In an incredible feat of endurance and teamwork reminiscent of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s epic crossing of the island just over a hundred years ago, the handlers walked a total of 1608km, with the dogs covering a total of 2420km, searching for signs of rats. This distance, roughly the equivalent of a return trip from London to Dundee, is all the more impressive given the rugged and challenging terrain of South Georgia.
Is it necessary for them to point out that the canine handlers were women?
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.