A warming island's mice are breeding out of control and eating seabirds. An extermination is planned
Mice accidentally introduced to a remote island near Antarctica 200 years ago are breeding out of control because of climate change, and they are eating seabirds and causing major harm in a special nature reserve with “unique biodiversity.”
Now conservationists are planning a mass extermination using helicopters and hundreds of tons of rodent poison, which needs to be dropped over every part of Marion Island’s 115 square miles (297 square kilometers) to ensure success.
If even one pregnant mouse survives, their prolific breeding ability means it may have all been for nothing.
The Mouse-Free Marion project — pest control on a grand scale — is seen as critical for the ecology of the uninhabited South African territory and the wider Southern Ocean. It would be the largest eradication of its kind if it succeeds.
https://apnews.com/article/mice-island-africa-climate-seabirds-extermination-ec4f281f396ca49910c359df5b99b64dOpen linkView original on lemmy.world
Holy crap. Renewed fear of mice activated. I hope their plan goes as well as they're planning. There's no good solution here.
I'm surpised they don't have a natural response to being eaten alive
Is attacked and bitten. Can literally fly away. Nah this is fine.
Thems some dumbass birds.
Mass extermination, from the sounds of it.
Ummmm.. So they're going to dump hundreds of tons of poison into an Island?? Where the fuck do they think that's going to end up??
This solution seems worse than the problem.
Not educated on the specific poison, but many poisons are only poisonous to anything, at a certain concentration. If the chemical is well understood, the aquatic risks could be very low
People like to think of mice as the friendly cudfly counterpart to rats
Nah, mice are little omnivorous shits who will literally eat you alive if given the chance