For the first time in living memory, young boobies, tropical gannet-like sea birds, are due to fledge from Ascension Island in the tropical Atlantic.
And New Zealanders have been at the forefront of the project.
Ascension, a barren 97sq km speck of land that forms a vital staging post on the flight
from Britain to the Falkland Islands, was once home to immense sea-bird colonies.
But in 1815, the British garrison introduced cats to control rats, another introduced species. The cats decimated the sea bird populations on the island and the colonies disappeared. Boobies and other sea birds were banished to small precipitous rocks off Ascension.
Last year, after 40 years of campaigning by conservationists, the British Government allocated $1 million for ecological restoration on Ascension, a British Overseas Territory, including eradication of feral cats. Eight New Zealanders, under the leadership of Mike Bell, of Wildlife Management International, arrived on Ascension in early February.
"It was important that the island's 1000-strong population, a mix of St Helenans, expats, and service personnel, supported the programme," said Mr Bell. "So we held public meetings to explain what was going on.
"This was a vital precursor to neutering all domestic cats and implanting them with electronic tags to ensure that no one's pet cat got caught up in the cull. We also consulted with welfare organisations to ensure that our methods were as humane as practicable."
Since January, around 500 feral cats have been killed using a mix of shooting, poisoning and trapping. Now Mr Bell thinks only a handful of feral cats remain.
All domestic cats wear reflective collars to ensure that marksmen target only uncollared cats.
"It is really exciting that birds are now nesting, even before complete eradication of the cats," says Jim Stevenson, the international officer of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, who has managed the project on behalf of the UK Foreign Office.
The New Zealand team will stay on the island until the cat eradication project is complete early in the New Year.
- INDEPENDENT
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
Further reading
nzherald.co.nz/environment
