The Rat Island Saga
5 hours ago
Kip Hansen
Guest Essay by Kip Hansen – 29 March 2021
RAT ISLAND, as it used to be known when it was overrun by rats, is a tiny speck way out in the west end of the Alaskan Aleutian Islands – which extend from the southwestern point of mainland Alaska and head out south and west towards the coast of Siberian Russia.
It is a little bit of rock sticking up out the Pacific Ocean to the south of the Bering Strait. [ This Rat Island is not to be confused with the Rat Island in the Easter Group of the Houtman Abrolhos archipelago 78 km west of Geraldton, Western Australia.]
[ Note: This essay is a long ramble through the history of Rat Island and the efforts of well-intentioned environmentalist intervention there. Read it when you’ve settled in for the evening with a cup of hot cocoa. ]
Recent science news outlets carried stories like this: Island Overrun With Rats Completely Recovers in Only 11 Years After Ecosystem Had Been Decimated, based on this recently published study: Indirect effects of invasive rat removal result in recovery of island rocky intertidal community structure. In Australia, 9News covered the story here.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/03/29/the-rat-island-saga/
