Campaign to destroy all mice on the Island ... mouse

Only a very small mistake, many years of planning a $ 3 million wildlife project will become worthless. Last week, a group of 18 people left Homer aboard the Reliance, heading for the tiny Rat Island at the end of the Aleutian chain with the task of destroying.

By covering the island with small poison pills in action this week, scientists hope to completely destroy Norwegian mice. The animal escaped the 18th-century Japanese shipwreck and reigned on the 6871-acre island, 1,700 miles from Anchorage.

Steve Ebbert, biologist and project leader at the Alaska National Wildlife Headquarters, where the mouse attack was coordinated, said: 'We have planned to succeed. Weather is a big risk. We need a few beautiful days. '

Rats have been removed from 300 islands worldwide, including islands in New Zealand and atolls near Hawaii. However, this is the first time the mouse has been removed from an Alaska island - if Ebbert and his team succeeded.

The rat island is one of 2400 islands extending from Lisburne Cape on Chukchi Sea to the end of the Aleutian Islands to the west and Forrester Island south of Alaska Panhandle to the east.

Rats live on about a dozen large islands as well as many other small islands, eating seabirds and their eggs. Seabirds such as the neck-neck albatross, auklet and storm albatross nest on the ground, usually in cracks or cracks of volcanic rocks. These birds use a considerable amount of time away from eggs and offspring.

And the mouse is a very large animal

A common pair of rats has between 4 and 6 litters per year, each with 6 to 12 offspring. Ebbert said he had to eradicate these animals.

Although managers have removed the Northern fox - not the native species - from more than 40 Aleutian islands since the 1940s, this is an attempt on the first time to remove mice.

Ebbert said: 'Our mission is to preserve, protect and strengthen the habitat for the sea. The mouse has been living in Rat Island for 200 years - there is no place they can't find. '

Destroying them is not an easy task

18 people will stay on the island for 45 days, until November 15. Among them there are 4 helicopter pilots controlling two helicopter, a doctor and a mechanical engineer. Two straight planes depart from Anchorage, using the route with 4 refueling stations.

The research vessel, M / V Tigalax, will dock on October 1

The intention was the helicopter, hang the 700 Pao Rodenticide containers, spread the poison evenly across the entire island twice.

Ebbery said: 'We want to do it 7 days apart, but if the harsh climate prevents the flight, we want to make sure the poison is spread evenly across the island.'

The tablets contained smaller toxins than dog food pellets, each containing anticoagulants that caused rats to hemorrhage until death.

Helicopters will use GPS systems to locate in straight lines. GPS connects to a switch to open the poison container and drops it down a few meters away.

Biologists will then remove the camera card from the GPS, plug in the computer and then print the map of the covered areas.

The mouse is a species that eats a lot.(Photo: thezoneblitz)

Everything must be perfect

Steve Mclean, program manager for Bering Sea at the Alaska Center for Environmental Conservation in Anchorage, said: 'In the simplest way, only a couple of surviving mice are considered to be failures.'

The Center for Environmental Conservation has spent $ 2 million on the project.

Mclean said: 'We have successfully completed many other projects, We have also worked in remote and challenging areas'.

Accuracy of time is crucial. Most birds on the island have left in late autumn. Winter is the most appropriate, but scientists are trying to balance the time so they can safely move people and equipment on the island full of wind and rain.

Ebbert said scientists will be back in two years to check whether all mice are dead.

If successful, Rat Island will become the third largest island without mice. The largest is the Campbell Island, 27,922 acres south of New Zealand. Two pilots working on Mouse Island are New Zealand veterans. After eradicating the rat species seven years ago, many seabirds returned to Campbell Island, and one of the rarest ducks in the world has been restored.

On a global scale, mice are responsible for the extinction of 60% of seabirds, mostly on islands, according to the Island Conservation Organization, a California conservation group that focuses on protecting life on islands. .

Gregg Howald, the organization's manager, is currently working with the Marine and Wildlife Animals Agency and the Nature Conservation Center, said: 'Mice are one of the most dangerous invasive species. If you go to Rat Island, you will notice strange silence compared to the rich life on other Aleutian islands ".

The risk of invasion of rats is still increasing

Thousands of ships - many with mice on the deck - travel through these remote islands annually, forming a freight route between Asia and US port parties. Traffic through the Unimak Pass, a 28-mile long corridor through the Aleutian chain, doubled the amount of ship traffic to all of the Alaska ports combined, according to a 185-page report published by the Research Department in Washington, DC of the Society. National research co-publication.

If the operation on Mouse Island is successful, will this island name change?

Ebbert said it was not necessary, he pointed out that changing the name must go through the United States Geographic Identity Council, which is part of the US Geological Survey. Many locations in Alaska 'whose names are no longer appropriate' , such as the Green Timbers in Homer, the area with a dead spruce, the tree was destroyed in 1964 after an earthquake. .

However Mclean disagrees.

He said: 'We want to name the island. It could be called Aleut in some way. When we remove the mouse from the island, renaming it is an appropriate job. '