Killing Rats Could Save Coral Reefs (bbc.co.uk)

The much maligned rat is not a creature many would associate with coral reefs. But scientists studying reefs on tropical islands say the animals directly threaten the survival of these ecosystems. From a report: A team working on the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean found that invasive rats on the islands are a "big problem" for coral reefs. Rats decimate seabird populations, in turn decimating the volume of bird droppings -- a natural coral fertiliser. The findings are published in Nature. Scientists now advocate eradicating rats from all of the islands to protect these delicate marine habitats.

Comments

Re:Is it not the really big rats?

[Nidi62]

Nothing a few kittehs can't fix.

Except the cats would kill the birds too. So you would have to introduce dogs to keep the cats under control as well. Which means adding cars to keep the dog population from getting out of hand. Then the car population gets too big so you have to introduce hipsters to reduce the number of cars. And the last thing anyone wants are islands overrun with hipsters.