An environmental organization has an ambitious plan to get rid of mice by “bombarding” the island with pellets coated with rat poison.
In South Africa, conservationists plan to “bomb” remote Marion Island with pesticide-laced pellets to kill mice that eat seabirds alive.
The mice that have taken over the island eat the eggs of the world’s most important seabirds, and recently they have started eating live seabirds as well. Giant albatrosses, of which a quarter of the world’s population nests on Marion Island, have become victims of mice.
– Mice have been observed for the first time last year eating full-grown giant albatrosses, CEO of the South African animal protection organization Birdlife Mark Anderson says.
Mice attacks on seabirds have increased in recent years. However, seabirds do not know how to defend themselves, because they have evolved without the threat of land predators. According to Anderson, hundreds of thousands of seabirds disappear from the island every year because of the mice.
– The mice just climb on them and slowly eat them until they die, says Anderson.
Marion Island is located about 2,000 kilometers southeast of Cape Town. 29 species of seabirds nest on the island, and 19 of them are threatened with local extinction.
The Mouse-Free Marion project has so far collected about a quarter of the needed 26 million euros. The organization is scheduled to drop 600 tons of pellets coated with rat poison from helicopters. The organization wants to carry out the poisoning in the winter of 2027, when mice are at their hungriest and seabirds are mostly elsewhere.
Helicopters should fly in extreme weather conditions and reach every corner of the island. According to Anderson, you have to get rid of the mice down to the last individual.
The number of mice has grown rapidly on the island, as they reproduce more often and over a longer period as a result of climate change. When plants and vertebrates have become scarce, they have started eating birds.
Source: AFP