Marion Island, in South Africa, is considered an important refuge and a place of reproduction for marine birds. However, this reality has changed radically due to an infestation of rodents that attack albatro-rural puppies and even adult champions, devouring them alive.
The situation is so serious that hundreds of thousands of birds die every year because of these attacks.
The managers of this threat are domestic mice, arrived on the island in the nineteenth century, inadvertently brought by the seal hunters. Now they have become a real danger to the survival of birds. To try to contain the problem, a drastic measure was adopted: bombing the island with baits mixed with mice poison.
Project Marion without mouse (MFM)
The conservationist Mark Anderson revealed that only in 2023 was it discovered that the mice began to feed on adult albatrates, not just puppies.
The birds, who have evolved without terrestrial predators, do not know how to defend themselves from these attacks and agonate for days due to wounds and infections caused by rodents.
The strategy of poison bombing has an estimated cost of $ 26 million (about 535 million reais) and is financed by a combination of government support and a fundraising campaign. According to the official website of the Marion without mouseThe project tries to eliminate the rats of an area of 30 thousand hectares on the island.
Anton Wolfaardt, conservation scientist …
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Source: Terra

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