October 25, 2010Comments are closed.cats
Remember the Macquarie Island cat cull? The government removed all the feral cats (around 400-500) in an effort to protect seabirds, only to have it go very, very badly as the population of rats, mice and rabbits exploded, destroying much of the fragile vegetation that the birds depended on for cover and to breed, also causing major erosion and landslips.
The British Ecological Society’s Journal of Applied Ecology reported that it “caused environmental devastation that would cost authorities $24 million Australian dollars to remedy”
“Our study shows that between 2000 and 2007, there has been widespread ecosystem devastation and decades of conservation effort compromised.”
“The unintended consequences of the cat-removal project show the dangers of meddling with an ecosystem ‘even with the best of intentions’ without thinking long and hard.”
So the environmentalists, realising their error, got some helicopters and started dropping poison. I mean, you would, wouldn’t you? And now we have a report on how that went;
The State and Federal Governments are spending almost $25 million on a baiting program to kill the feral animals.
The team always knew that there’d be a risk that kelp gulls would also take the bait and die. But in a letter that’s been leaked to the ABC, the Federal Government has said the level of bird deaths was higher than expected. Other species were also killed.
The species included kelp gulls, giant petrels, black ducks and skuas.
The tally was 431 birds of six species after only 8 per cent of the bait was used.
The poisoning program is now on hold pending a Federal Government review.
Keep in mind that although this is going spectacularly badly, these are the ideal conditions for a program such as this; being that it’s on an island and they have poured bucketloads of money into the project. Whereas if we are talking about the mainland, the government’s feral pest advisory group – the one who is given millions to dream up new toxins and trapping techniques – say eradication in Australia is unrealistic. You need to be able to isolate the location completely to remove each introduced animal in turn.
But what we’re actually seeing on Macquarie Island is the law of unintended consequences on methamphetamine. Even on an island with an almost unlimited pot of money, this effort at reshaping the landscape into what we feel would be a more desirable state, can make a whole load of smart people look just as foolish as those who said in the past… ‘cane toads – that’s what we need!’
Related article; Why we can’t just ‘get rid of’ free-roaming cats
