Apr. 13

Hordes of giant mice are devouring endangered seabird chicks on a remote South Atlantic island and may be pushing some of the birds to extinction, scientists report.

The carnage has harmed the breeding success of endangered Tristan albatrosses and threatened Atlantic petrels on Gough Island, a British territory a thousand miles (1,600 kilometers) off the coast of South Africa.

The birds' sole breeding ground is home to 22 bird species—10 million birds in total—and is considered the world's most important seabird colony.

Common house mice were introduced to the island more than a century ago. Now three times larger than normal mice, the invasive rodents likely number more than a million.

Video cameras revealed one pack of ten mice feeding on a Tristan albatross chick's wounds as it nested on the ground. Footage also showed mice devouring Atlantic petrel and great shearwater chicks.

The birds did not fight off their attackers, even as some mice fed inside the body cavity of one albatross chick.

Researchers say the footage provides the first hard evidence that mice previously thought harmless to seabirds are willing to attack prey more than 300 times their weight.

Nearly three feet (one meter) tall, a Tristan albatross chick can weigh up to 22 pounds (10 kilograms), or about as much as a turkey. Gough Island mice weigh just 1.2 ounces (35 grams) on average.

The mice on Gough are amongst the biggest wild house mice in the world. In winter, they eat through the 'island larder' until they start to run out of seeds and invertebrates.

At that point they increasingly start to eat seabirds, as well as other mice. A Gough winter is not a nice place to be a seabird or a mouse.

While small in area, ocean islands sustain the world's highest diversity of bird species, the researchers note, adding that over the past four centuries, 90 percent of global bird extinctions have involved island species.

go

wow..very interesting..sad though.

why wouldn't they do sumtim! go buy some millions of Mouse Traps! and Kill those PEST! if i were in that place and i have power ( money and fame ) i would defintely help the birds . even if it would cost alot.

I agree.

giant mice? wow, and the idea of a million mouse traps is cool LOL, kill them