Mongabay:
Redonda’s invasive black rats and long-horned goats have transformed the
once-forested island into a ‘moonscape’, conservationists say
Shreya Dasgupta for Mongabay,
part of the Guardian Environment Network
Monday 1 August
201616.51 BST
The remote Caribbean island of
Redonda, part of Antigua and Barbuda, is home to numerous species of plants and
animals found nowhere else on earth. It is also home to invasive black rats and
non-native goats that are wiping out the island’s native, rare wildlife,
conservationists say.
To help the island’s flora and
fauna, the Government of Antigua and Barbuda is now initiating a plan to remove
all goats and rats from the island. The Redonda Restoration Program program has
been formed by the Antigua & Barbuda Government and the Environmental
Awareness Group (EAG) in collaboration with organizations like Fauna &
Flora International, British Mountaineering Council, Island Conservation and
Wildlife Management International Ltd.
“This work will dramatically
transform an entire island ecosystem,” Sophia Steele of Fauna & Flora
International told Mongabay. “It will save a number of rare endemic species
from otherwise almost certain extinction, such as the Critically Endangered
Redonda tree lizard, which currently finds itself living on an island almost
devoid of trees.”
The island currently has a
population of over 5,000 invasive black rats that prey on the island’s native
species. The rugged island is also home to around 60 long-horned goats that
humans brought to Redonda more than a century ago. The rats and goats are
believed to have been introduced into the island by a guano mining community,
which was disbanded after World War I.
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