Mice Eating Albatross Chicks on Gough Island

[Guest guest]

[ This is heartbreaking. Scientist need to figure out

a way to get rid of these mice. This particular island

is vital to many different sea birds. Rick.]

 

 

 

 

Giant mice on south Atlantic island 'eating seabird

chicks alive' Mon Jul 25,11:32 AM ET

 

Source >

http://news./news?tmpl=story & cid=1540 & ncid=1540 & e=5 & u=/afp/20050725/sc_\

afp/britainscienceatlantic_050725153217

 

 

 

LONDON (AFP) - Giant carnivorous mice on the

British-ruled island of Gough in the south Atlantic

are eating seabird chicks alive in mass feeding

frenzies, threatening several species' survival, a

wildlife charity warned.

 

 

The house mice, while three times the size of those

seen in mainland Britain, are still only one 250th the

size of the chicks they attack, the Royal Society for

the Protection of Birds (RSPB) said Monday.

 

The mice, which strike at night in large numbers, are

devouring more than one million petrel, shearwater and

albatross chicks on Gough Island every year, the

charity warned.

 

The island, a UN World Heritage site in the South

Atlantic, is the most important seabird colony on the

planet, hosting more than 10 million birds. It is one

of the Tristan da Cunha group of islands, a British

overseas territory.

 

" Gough Island hosts an astonishing community of

seabirds, and the catastrophe could make many extinct

within decades, " said Geoff Hilton, a senior research

biologist at the RSPB.

 

" We think there are about 700,000 mice which have

somehow learned to eat chicks live, much like blue

tits learned to peck milk bottle tops, " he said.

 

" The albatross chicks weigh up to ten kilograms (22

pounds), and ironically albatrosses evolved to nest on

Gough because it had no mammal predators -- that is

why they are so vulnerable, " he said.

 

" The mice weigh just 35 grams (1.235 ounces). It is

like a tabby cat attacking a hippopotamus. "

 

In a pattern only ever seen on Gough Island, one mouse

attacks a chick and the resultant blood appears to

attract others, who gnaw into the defenceless chick's

body, creating a gaping wound until it dies.

 

The chicks are more or less immobile and unable to

defend themselves, Hilton said.

 

" Without predators this would not be a problem, but

for a carnivorous mouse population one of the wettest

and windiest places on earth it is an easy meal of

almost unimaginable quality, " he said.

 

" The result is carnage. "

 

Scientists suspect that the mice are also eating the

eggs and chicks of the rare ground-nesting Gough

bunting, a small finch found nowhere else in the

world.

 

Researchers think the finch has been forced from the

best nesting sites into less suitable uplands areas.

 

The Gough mouse is one of 2,900 non-native species

damaging native wildlife in the 17 UK Overseas

Territories and Crown Dependencies, a review by the

Joint Nature Conservation Committee has found.

 

Gough Island hosts 99 percent of the world's Tristan

albatross and Atlantic petrel populations, the birds

most often attacked. Just 2,000 Tristan albatross

pairs remain.