Ecuador declares war on foreign invaders

Ecuadorian officials launched a campaign to destroy hundreds of millions of mice on the Galapagos Islands to protect other species.

When pirates and whale hunters arrived in Ecuador's Galapagos Islands in the 17th century, they brought Norwegian mice and black rats. Then the foreign rats grew at a very fast rate. They eat eggs and young offspring of other species on the island - like giant turtles, lizards, snakes, falcons, thunderstorms. Rats also destroy plants that animals eat. Some birds are facing extinction by their destruction. That situation forced Ecuadorian officials to launch a rat killing campaign until 2020.

A helicopter drops 22 tons of poison baits on Pinzon Island and Plaza Sur in the Galapagos Islands from November 15 to the end of the month. This event kicked off the second phase of the foreign mouse destroying campaign on the islands.

Helicopters of Galapagos National Park carry test equipment
Experimental mouse baits on Baltra Island, Galapagos Islands on 11/11.

According to experts, the number of rats on Pinzon Island - an area of ​​1,812 hectares - could reach 180 million.

'The raging of mice is one of the worst problems on the Galapagos Islands. Every three months they give birth once and they eat everything, ' said Juan Carlos Gonzalez, a nature conservation expert of Galapagos National Park.

Earlier, in the first phase of the campaign, helicopters had dropped the rat on more than 10 islands of the Galapagos. Isabela and Santa Cruz, two inhabited islands, will be targets in the third phase of the campaign. Mice are kept in small blue boxes, the color that the mouse likes but does not attract the attention of other species. After about a week the boxes will decompose.

'This is an expensive but necessary war , ' Gonzalez said.

Experts locked 34 falcons on Pinzon Island and 40 thunderstorms on Plaza Sur Island so they wouldn't eat baits. They will be released in early January.

Charles Darwin, the father of evolutionary theory, visited the Galapagos Islands during a round-the-world tour from 1831 to 1836. He discovered that the wildlife here evolved completely independently of the The rest of the earth, with many unique species. Therefore, this archipelago has become an ideal evolutionary research model of scientists.