Above Picture: Future assured? A helicopter flies a bait bucket above a Tristan Albatross chick on Gough Island, photograph by Michelle Risi
For those of us involved with the Mouse-Free Marion Project, the news that the Gough Island Restoration Programme (GIRP) has completed the aerial baiting to eradicate that island’s introduced House Mice as announced on its Facebook Page this week has come as a great relief: “The second bait application on Gough Island is complete! The team finally got a decent enough break in the weather and managed to finish the second application yesterday [01 August]. Whilst the completion of the second drop is significant and means we now have a reasonable chance of the mouse eradication operation being a success, a supplementary application had always been planned over ‘high-risk’ areas – to ensure we did absolutely everything within our power to eradicate the mice. The great news is that with two consecutive good days for baiting, most of this supplementary baiting has also been completed!”
And only one day later there was more good news from GIRP:
“JOB DONE! Baiting on Gough is complete! Now there’s nothing more we can do to increase our chances of eradicating the mice – everyone has given this everything they’ve got!”
Full coverage attained! The colours refer to areas baited by the four different helicopters
The successful completion of baiting on Gough bodes well for a similar success on Marion Island. Lessons learnt will help inform the Marion eradication attempt come 2023, including working with the often-unkind sub-Antarctic weather. The second and supplementary bait drops on Gough followed a long gap since the completion of the first bait drop back in June (the intended gap was around two weeks), with poor weather conditions having caused the delay.
It seems South Africa’s Antarctic research and supply ship, the S.A. Agulhas II will arrive at Gough to remove the eradication team around mid-month. Let’s hope the team’s departure will signal the end of the “killer” mice and allow the island’s albatrosses and petrels to breed unhindered for the first time in decades. In fact, there are already early signs of success with no losses of Tristan Albatross chicks to mice predation in two study areas after the first bait drop.
The whole Mouse-Free Marion Project team is delighted to hear that the baiting work has been successfully completed. MFM Project Manager Anton Wolfaardt writes: “This is an incredible milestone for the project and towards the restoration of Gough Island. Many congratulations to all involved in achieving this amazing outcome as yet another sub-Antarctic island moves towards recovery”. Although the baiting has been completed, it will be two years before it can be confirmed that Gough is mouse free at last. Here’s hoping!
Access the latest (No. 9, July 2021) and earlier editions of Island Restoration News, the GIRP newsletter here.
John Cooper, Member, Scientific and Technical Advisory Group, Mouse-Free Marion Project, 06 August 2021
