Ah, a rat!
A tiny Alaskan island with a population of just 350 people, known as the “Galapagos of the North,” is in the grip of panic over a rat that may not even exist.
Residents of St. Paul Island in the Bering Sea have been searching for the possible rat for about three months, since locals reported a possible sighting in June.
There are no rats on the remote island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, and the introduction of the animals, likely arrived by plane or boat, could set off a chain reaction that threatens to threaten the thriving seabird population on the island that has made St. Paul a world-renowned birdwatching destination.
“The abundance of wildlife that we hear stories about and read about in history books is almost completely absent in our modern world,” says Donald Lyons, director of conservation science at the National Audubon Society's Seabird Research Center. “And… [St. Paul] It was truly a place where you could experience the wonder and grandeur of nature.”
The rapidly reproducing rats are taking over other remote islands and are driving bird populations to extinction by eating eggs, chicks and sometimes even adult birds.
“We've seen this in Alaska and other islands and places around the world, and we know that rats are devastating seabird colonies, so this is not something that the community can take lightly,” Lauren Devine, ecological conservation office director for the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island, told The Associated Press.
Once rats have taken over an island, it often takes millions of dollars and years to eradicate them all, and then several more years for bird populations to recover.
Residents are not 100% sure if they have seen the bearded pest, but wildlife officials are setting up elaborate traps to try and find the animal.
After searching every nook and cranny for droppings, footprints, nibble marks and other signs of potential visitors, officials try to capture them with peanut butter bait, wax “tube blocks” that mark rat bites and are made of an ultraviolet material that makes rat droppings glow under a black light, and trail cameras.
In nearly three months of searching, authorities have found no sign of the animal believed to be a rat.
Devine said the search is like looking for a needle in a haystack without knowing if the needle even exists.
St. Paul has a rat-control border security system in place at the airport and in developed waterfront areas to eradicate rats that invade the island before they get too far.
However, in 2018, one of them escaped heavy security and evaded capture for 10 months before being discovered dead.
With post wire
