Guest Author - Violette DeSantis

Since 1780 an island in Alaska named Rat Island had been overrun by rats since the sinking of a Japanese whale ship. The type of rats on the Japanese ship was the Norway rat. This is a rat common to us in big city subways and sewers. It is a hardy breed and a great swimmer. They are brown and huge, getting as large as 18 inches with their 6-inch tail.

In the 229 years that the rats had lived on the Aleutian island they had a negative impact on the environment there (Aleutian is close to a native word meaning island). All other wildlife was squeezed off the island. Almost all the birds of the island had disappeared. With no trees on Rat Island the birds were left to compete with the rats for nesting places and probably fight for their lives. The rats ate eggs and smaller birds. They were also a threat to all other forms of wildlife. There is even evidence that shows that their effect on the island also affected the marine life surrounding the island.

Conservationists are greatly concerned with unique island life that is affected by rat populations. Over the years there have been efforts to rid similar islands of the rodent inhabitants. In particular, one of the world’s rarest creatures in the Caribbean islands, the St. Lucia whiptail lizard was in danger its own Rat Island.

To rid the Aleutian’s Rat Island of the rodent, scientists studied ways to place poison on the island. They wanted to make sure that their poison bait would be the type of poison that would be eaten by the rats and that they would die in their nests underground. If this worked then other large animals would not eat the dead rats and die from the poison as well.

The test study worked as the scientists expected and the organizations involved in the project decided to move forward with a full scale plan to rid Rat Island of its rats. The special poison bait was dropped by helicopter on different areas of Rat Island.

Sadly after the scientists went back they found that some of the island‘s biggest birds, some American Bald Eagles and other large water birds in the region, had died for unknown reasons. They have to do studies to see if it was from the special poison or not.

There was good news from their visit back to Rat Island too. There were more sounds familiar to an island than there had been before. Life is growing on the Aleutian island after the disappearance of the rats. Although the future of Rat Island is unknown and it is uncertain if all the rats were killed things look positive for the region.

Now they will have to rename the island.