Rats are the ecological Grim Reaper. But Australia’s Lord Howe Island has recently shown the tables can be turned on rodent invaders
On a summer evening in 2001, two men set out to scale Ball’s Pyramid, a jagged spire of rock off the coast of Lord Howe Island, a remnant volcano 480 miles northeast of Sydney, Australia. They were looking for an insect that hadn’t been seen for more than 70 years.
But Lord Howe Island has recently shown the tables can be turned on rodent invaders. Eradicating them provides an ecological reset and the opportunity for endangered species such as the supersize stick insect to make a comeback. “It’s amazing what’s unfolding,” says Hank Bower, a Lord Howe environmental manager for 15 years.
These efforts scarcely dented rodent numbers. An island paradise designated a World Heritage site in 1982, Lord Howe was ecologically damaged and at risk of losing more species.Ridding islands of predators was once thought impossible. But over the past 70 years, more than a thousand islands have been cleared. No island now seems beyond redemption. The biggest success so far is South Georgia, the size of New York’s Long Island, which was declared rat free in 2018.
The core problem with inhabited islands is political: getting people to agree to an eradication project and support its execution. On Lord Howe, a slim majority of the 350 residents embraced the idea; the rest did not. Some opponents of the project believed eradication could not be achieved and so should not be attempted. Others were alarmed about the health implications of dropping tons of rat poison from helicopters.
The crux of any island eradication is that every predator must encounter a bait. There can be no exceptions. This required the project team to place baits in more than 600 structures, from houses to hotel rooms, sheds to shops, and in roof spaces where rats or mice might be living.Please be respectful of copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited.: Lord Howe Island has a rich diversity of endemic snail species, many of which were severely threatened by rodent predation.
In 2016, during a snail survey across the island, researchers found only one specimen of a related pinwheel snail in two weeks of scouting. In 2020, after the eradication, they found 73. Similar increases were observed in other snail species, and one was rediscovered after not having been seen for more than a hundred years.Islanders have been surprised by the speed of the recovery.
The common coastal succulent known as pigface has started fruiting for the first time. It’s one of a growing category Bower calls “never seen that before.” In July, an endemic wingless ground-burrowing cockroach was rediscovered after not having been seen since the 1930s. For Lord Howe’s nature-minded residents, no reintroduction would be sweeter than that of the stick insect. Two years after the species was rediscovered in 2001, two pairs were collected from Ball’s Pyramid in the hope that they would breed in captivity. One pair, nicknamed Adam and Eve, was given to Melbourne Zoo. Initial prospects were not good. Eve fell gravely ill but was nursed back to health by being hand-fed a slurry of ground-up tea-tree leaves, sugar, and calcium.
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