‘They started nibbling at its head’: the bold plan to rid an island of albatross-eating mice | Birds

forY 2015, scientists knew of the evidence of the camera trap that the mice were attacking the peremptory chicks on the island South Africa. Therefore, when researchers coincided with Stephen and Janein Shomby, the Patros Cotta, they wounded in a possible part of the island, they decided to return at night. After walking for 30 minutes in the dark, Stefan started preparing camera equipment quietly behind a rock. He says: “We expected to have to chase, but the mice were climbing all over our parts,” he says.

It didn’t take long until the mice begin to feed on the peremptory chick. “The bird was a full sand ball,” says Janin. “Therefore, they climbed her back and started in the judges on his head. We can see their teeth enter her body.” The bird, the smallest to walk away from flying, can only shake his head in irritation. “As scholars, our job is not to interfere,” says Stephen. “But we really wanted to help this bird.”

The next morning, they returned to the site to find that the chick had joined one of his parents – but the adult birds could not do anything either. “Such a situation was hopeless,” says Janine. After a few days, the chick succumbed to his injuries and ate the giant petition.

Now, however, assistance is accessible to sea birds on Marion Island, 1,180 miles (1900 km) southeast of Cape Town. Next month, scholars from Marion Free Mouse Project (MFM) – A partnership between Birdlife South Africa and the South African government will take a decisive step towards eliminating mice from the island by spreading toxic baits on foot, through a relatively small section of the island.

This time, next year, a helicopter will be used to drop the bait through a much larger group of Marion. Assuming that the project achieves the goals of financing, these tests will be crowned in the winter of 2028 when five or six helicopters (which were brought to the island on the ship) will distribute the poisoned bait across the entire island, in an attempt to eliminate the pests that were unintentionally presented to the island by the nineteenth century seas. If it succeeds, it will be that The largest elimination of mice ever In one process.

The efforts made to start improving bird wealth on the island were not better. Last week, The South African government announced The bird flu is confirmed that it is on the island for the first time. It was found in six different types of birds, as the patros chicks wander around the greatest numbers (150 out of about 1900 chicks) last year.

Marion Island and the neighboring Edward Island – which, fortunately, is free of mouse – is a reproductive land for 50 % of the world’s roaming pebberry. But this is not in any way the only species to survive by mice: 19 of the 29 birds that nest in the island of Marion are facing local extinction by rodents. Among them, Marion is important worldwide for the gray and light gray arches championship.

“The decision to eliminate mice was not taken lightly.” I do not like to kill things. “The judiciary was discussed for the first time seriously in more than a decade, with a feasibility study in 2015 and found that the mice disposal was technically possible. The evaluation of the morals that took place in 2022 showed that not doing anything and leaving the mice to destroy the system The ecological of the island was not a moral procedure. Wolfardit says: “It is a necessary step, to correct the mistakes that a person has in the past.”

These errors include the introduction of five cats that are not available to the island in 1949. Cats were supposed to aim to control mice around the research base, but, Wolfart says, “They have quickly discovered that naive marine birds on the island made targets much easier.” By the mid -seventies of the twentieth century, there was a brutal cat’s population of about 2000 killing an estimated 450,000 marine birds every year.

After a sustainable campaign, cats were eliminated in 1991. “The removal of mice is the last piece of puzzle,” says Wolfart, who explained that the problem has become worse in the past thirty years with the warmer temperatures and dehydration conditions increased the number of mouse.

For inspiration and experience, Wolfaardt and his team looked at New Zealand, World leaders in eliminating pests. Since New Zealand does not have original mammals, it has caused mice, mice, lines and chaos among local species. Starting in the sixties of the last century, the New Zealand government began to purify the small islands of pests to give original bird species safe havens to reproduce.

While the New Zealands sharpened their skills, they started more ambitious projects, clearing more than 300 islands of pests. They enabled them to develop GPS and DUSTING Helicopter in the 1990s to treat much larger islands.

Keith Springer, MFM Operations Manager, is a New Zealand worked on the largest mice eradication (on Macquari Island) And rats (In southern GeorgiaThat is, about 12 times larger than Marion) among many other projects. With the passage of three years until work, the project has already become a full -time job. “The pressure is huge.” “You just have to miss two categories among many millions and have come back to where it started.” Nearly 20 years ago, when it was believed that the number of mouse was smaller on the island, the number of mice It was registered by about 300 hectares (10,000 square meters) at the height of the breeding season.

The stabbing process was supposed to start at the island level at the beginning this year, but the challenges of financing and projects to eliminate unpleasant mouse recently, on the island of RSPB and in the middle of the road by American fish and Wildlife The service, forced the belt and risk approach.

Springer knows that it is all about controlling control tools – people, equipment and plans – in the hope of decent weather in the winter of 2028. “You can have years as it is difficult to fly.” “But with this type of complex operation, you nominate the years of your schedule in advance. You cannot change the plans at the last minute.”

Wolfaardt and Springer defines that if they do not succeed, it will be contracts before they can try again. But they also know that most of the past fifteen elimination projects have succeeded – and that a few of them have been carefully planned like MFM.

Wolfaardt says it is a possibility of success – instead of fear of failure – he pays. “Conservation rarely contains silver bullets, but eliminating the species provided by the islands is the closest to us on a silver bullet. I have been working in conservation for 30 years. This is the only position that I faced as we can already return the watch. And if we succeed, we can say with 100 % certainty that there will be gains to maintain a wide range.”