Well it has been a long and challenging journey but after 8
years, many hurdles and lessons learnt along the way, and some dedicated teams
doing lots of hard yards (especially the hunting teams on the island who clocked
up just under 92,000 km of search effort over the last three years), the
eradication of rabbits, ship rats and house mice from Macquarie Island has been
declared successful.
Thanks to all of you who have supported and contributed to
making the project a success.
Press release attached and a different one below. A TV
interview from yesterday is at http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-08/macquarie-island-pest-free/5374870
Cheers
Keith
Matthew Groom, Minister for Environment, Parks
and Heritage
Macquarie Island pest-free
The
Macquarie Island Pest Eradication project has been declared a
success.
The
project to eradicate rabbits and rodents from Macquarie Island is a conservation
achievement of worldwide significance.
The
Minister for Environment, Parks and Heritage, Matthew Groom said a rigorous
monitoring program, which followed baiting, had not detected a rabbit, rat or
mouse in more than two years.
"The
program is the world's largest island eradication for these three pest species
and it has been an unqualified success," Mr Groom said.
"In
2007, the Australian and Tasmanian Governments announced they would jointly fund
the $25 million project to eradicate rabbits, rats and mice from the World
Heritage listed island.
"Australia
can rightly be very proud of this outstanding result. It is exciting to see an
ecosystem which suffered significant degradation due to pest species for more
than 100 years, firmly on the road to recovery.
"Pest
eradication is costly, as it requires the removal of every last individual of a
species, but in the long run is far cheaper than ongoing pest
control."
Mr
Groom said the island's considerable size of 12,785 hectares, and its location
1500 kilometres southeast of Tasmania in the sub-Antarctic, presented incredible
logistical challenges.
"Meticulous
planning was required to meet these challenges and to minimise the impact on
non-target species," Mr Groom said.
"The
project's success has been an incredible feat of persistence and dedication by
the hunters and dog handlers from the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife
Service."
"They
have scoured the island intensively, walking 90,000 km, more than two
times the earth's circumference, in their efforts to locate any surviving
individual pests."
"While
it may take a decade or more for the island's ecosystem to achieve equilibrium
following the removal of the pest species, there are already significant signs
of recovery in terms of vegetation and bird species.
"It
was expected that up to 24 bird species will benefit from the eradication
project, and signs of increased breeding success of some species are
encouraging."
Mr
Groom said biosecurity measures for all shipping to the island have been
improved in a joint program between the Australian Antarctic Division and the
Parks and Wildlife Service.
Keith Springer
Macquarie Island Pest Eradication Project Manager
Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service
PO Box 126, Moonah 7009, TAS.
Direct Ph: 03 6233 0452 Fax: 03 6233 6559
Mobile: 0438 513 343
Email:
Project web page
