Above Picture – Moving to safety from a landing helicopter. Keith Springer cradles an Antipodean Albatross chick on Antipodes Island
Following the interviewing of shortlisted candidates last month for the position of Operations Manager, the Mouse-Free Marion Project is pleased to announce that Mr Keith Springer of New Zealand has been offered and has accepted the post to rid South Africa’s sub-Antarctic Marion Island of its predatory House Mice that have taken to attacking and killing surface-breeding albatross and burrowing petrel chicks.
With a career that had its early days with New Zealand’s Department of Conservation, Antarctica New Zealand and the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service, Keith has considerable experience in island rodent eradication operations. He led the successful (and award-winning) operation to eradicate European Rabbits, Black Rats and House Mice from Australia’s Macquarie Island, was part of the South Georgia Heritage Trust’s Habitat Restoration Project team that successfully eradicated Brown Rats and House Mice from South Georgia and has served as an advisor on many other rodent-eradication projects. These have included being Operational Advisor and Safety Officer to the successful “Million Dollar Mouse” eradication on Antipodes Island and Operations Planner for the Gough Island Restoration Programme that aims to eradicate that island’s mice from June to September this year. He was also responsible for the development of draft Operational and Project Plans for the Mouse-Free Marion Project on behalf of BirdLife South Africa, having visited the island for this purpose in 2018.
Keith writes to the Mouse-Free Marion Project: “What motivates me to be involved in island pest eradication projects is the chance to contribute to shifting the ecological balance back to species native to the island. Seabirds are a particular beneficiary of predator removal, and they face so many issues off-island that they really do not need the added pressure of being “chomped on” when back on home turf. But vegetation, soil and invertebrates also improve with invasive predators removed, so there is no doubt that it is a whole-of-ecosystem response when predators are removed. My core motivation therefore is to plan operations to enhance the likelihood of a successful eradication outcome.” He also notes that albatrosses, including those at risk to Gough and Marion’s mice “already face so many threats at sea. On some of the islands they breed on, they face existential threats from introduced predators as well, so the populations are getting squeezed from both land and sea. Without actions to reduce fishing mortality and introduced predators on their breeding islands, we face the sad but very real possibility of a world without albatrosses.”
Keith is due to start with the Mouse-Free Marion Project in July, although for the first month he will also be involved with follow-up work on Australia’s Lord Howe Island where the Rodent Eradication Project was carried out in 2019. He will be based in New Zealand with regular trips to South Africa, and to Marion Island as well.
The Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels’ Information Officer, John Cooper, first met Keith Springer in the ACAP Secretariat offices in Hobart, Tasmania when Keith was in the early stages of executing the Macquarie Island Pest Eradication Project (MIPEP) for the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service. Their conversation included the issue of mice on Marion – some years before the first reports of attacks on albatrosses. Subsequently, regular posts to ACAP Latest News https://www.acap.aq/news/latest-news allowed readers to follow the fortunes of the Macquarie Island eradication effort to its ultimate success. Now, quite some years later, Keith will be bringing the knowledge and skills he learnt on “Macca” and honed elsewhere to rid Marion of its “killer” mice.
With thanks to Keith Springer and Anton Wolfaardt, Project Manager, Mouse-Free Marion Project.
John Cooper, 04 June 2021