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Mouse-catchers aim to eradicate predators on wild sub-Antarctic island

Xinhua, May 25, 2016 Adjust font size:

A New Zealand-led team was heading Wednesday for a remote and rarely visited sub--Antarctic island with the aim of eradicating one of its most destructive residents -- mice.

A supply ship left the South Island port of Timaru carrying helicopters and equipment to join a passenger yacht already on its way to the World Heritage-listed Antipodes Island.

A 13-strong team of experts including pilots, engineers and eradication specialists were aboard the two vessels.

Funded by New Zealand's Department of Conservation (DOC) and environmental campaign groups, the project will cost 3.9 million NZ dollars (2.63 million U.S. dollars) over three years.

Total eradication of mice would remove the only introduced predator on the island, returning its habitat to its natural state, Conservation Minister Maggie Barry said in a statement.

"The island is more than 760 km from (South Island city of) Dunedin, surrounded by rough seas and battered by Antarctic weather -- truly at the edge of the world -- and this expedition has posed extraordinary logistic difficulties which have been overcome," said Barry.

"Antipodes Island, like the other sub-Antarctic islands, is an isolated and remote ecosystem which makes it a special yet vulnerable home for a diverse array of life," she said.

"It is a vital habitat for many seabirds, including albatrosses, as well as other animals found nowhere else on Earth, such as the Antipodes Island and Reischek's parakeets, pipit and snipe. It is also a breeding ground for seals and many unique plants grow there."

DOC has developed an international reputation for eradicating introduced predators from islands in order to help revive populations of New Zealand's unique bird life and other species.

The team would lay bait for the mice and hoped to declare the island mouse-free by 2019.

DOC project manager Stephen Horn said in a statement the operation was one of the most challenging island eradications DOC had ever undertaken.

Mice came to the island by shipwreck or with seal hunters in the 1800s and had a significant impact on the island's ecosystem, eating insects and plants and preying on bird chicks and eggs.

Mice had wiped out two insect species on Antipodes and pushed some seabirds to breed on nearby mouse-free islands, and they posed a threat to the 25 varieties of seabird that bred on Antipodes. Endit