SA plans biggest-ever island mouse hunt as seabirds are killed off

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Preparations are underway for a mouse-eradication project on a remote island halfway between South Africa and Antarctica, the biggest of its kind ever undertaken, to stop the rodents eating endangered seabirds.

The country’s environment department together with Birdlife South Africa, a private organiz]sation, are raising about R450 million to kill the mice on Marion Island next year, the South African National Bidodiversity Institute said. The island’s only human inhabitants are researchers.

“Mice feed on both adult and hatchling endangered seabirds” and are damaging the ecosystem with their burros, the institute said in its annual report on invasive species released on Friday.

House mice, most likely introduced to the windswept island by sealers in the early 19th century, have surged in numbers over the last 30 years as the climate grew warmer and drier, the department and Birdlife said on the the ‘Mouse-Free Marion Project’ website. 

The mice began eating more birds after thinning out the number of invertebrates, on which they would normally feed. Unless action is taken, 19 of the 28 species of breeding seabirds on the island care at risk of being forced into local extinction by the mice over the next 30 years, the department and Birdlife said.

The eradication plan will likely see helicopters being used to drop rodenticide on the 30 000-hectare island, which is a South African territory.