As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Friday 19 February 2016

Bird population on Scilly Isles recovers after islands are declared 'rat-free'

Project to eradicate non-native brown rats that feed on eggs and chicks on St Agnes and Gugg is declared a success

Press Association
Saturday 13 February 2016 00.01 GMTLast modified on Monday 15 February 201611.04 GMT

A project to protect breeding seabirds from invasive rats on the Scilly Isles has been a success with the two islands declared “rat-free”.

Bird populations on St Agnes and Gugh, linked by a sand bar, are starting to recover after a quarter century of year-on-year declines following work to eradicate the non-native brown rats which were feeding on eggs and chicks, conservationists said.

They are thought to have first colonised the islands in the 18th century following several shipwrecks and grew to a population that was harmful to birds such as European storm-petrels (Hydrobates pelagicus) and Manx shearwaters (Puffinus puffinus), which have been in decline since the 1980s.

Local volunteers and conservationists began work in 2013 on a project to monitor rat activity on the island, followed by an intensive programme of baiting and poisoning for a month in the winter. No rats have been spotted since November 2013, and after a thorough month-long inspection at the beginning of this year the islands have been declared officially “rat-free”.

Since the removal of the rats, both Manx shearwaters and European storm-petrels are successfully breeding on the islands for the first time in living memory, conservationists said, with more than 40 chicks recorded on the islands in the last two years.


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