Eradicating feral foxes from Aleutian island leaves auklets to the rats
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2003:
ANCHORAGE–Perhaps the most catastrophic consequence for
conservation yet of the U.S. federal effort to eradicate “invasive
species” from sensitive wildlife habitat is evident on Kiska Island
in the Aleutians, touted earlier as scene of a major victory.
“In 1986, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service eradicated
foxes from Kiska as part of a campaign to save Aleutian Canada geese
from extinction,” Doug O’Harra of the Anchorage Daily News recounted
on July 14. “About 49,000 beef tallow baits laced with Compound 1080
poison were dropped on the island, killing an estimated 700 foxes”
who were introduced decades earlier by fur farmers.
“Biologists visiting the island in spring 1987 found that
Norway rats had exploded in number with the foxes gone, the
Associated Press reported that spring. A federal report noted the
apparent surge in rats as evidence that the foxes had been
eliminated,” wrote O’Harra.