Media release
7 April 2014
I am delighted to announce the Macquarie
Island Pest Eradication Programme has been
completed–and after two years of extensive
monitoring the island can now officially
be declared pest free.
The island is the largest
and most remote location where the total
eradication of three invasive species has
been successfully completed; ship rat, rabbit
and house mouse. This success is due to
the hard work and dedication of scientists,
ecologists, hunters and trainers and their
remarkable detector dogs.
Tonight the dogs have
arrived home in Hobart signalling the completion
of their task.
Before the programme
started the Macquarie Island World Heritage
Area was in severe danger. Ship rats were
attacking and killing the chicks and eggs
of endangered seabirds. Rabbits had destroyed
the breeding grounds of nesting seabirds,
including albatrosses, petrels and prions,
and the pests had caused extensive erosion
and destabilisation of the island’s mountain
slopes.
A landslip at Lusitania
Bay resulted in the deaths of over 100 king
penguins. The decline of the island’s vegetation
was an immediate threat to nine seabird
species that used the area for breeding.
It was estimated the island’s rabbit population
exceeded 100 000.
The Australian and Tasmanian
governments have invested more than $24
million to ensure one of the world’s most
fascinating places, and its inhabitants,
is preserved.
After extensive planning
and research, aerial baiting for the pests
began in winter 2010. In 2011, to prevent
seabird deaths from the consumption of poisoned
rabbit carcasses, people were sent to the
island to find and remove carcasses before
they were eaten by the scavenging seabirds.
Teams of skilled hunters
and specially trained detector dogs eliminated
the remaining rabbits. The dogs were trained
to locate rabbits but not to harm native
animals. Three specially trained rodent
detector dogs were sent to the island in
March 2013.
Since August 2011 six
dog handlers, four hunters plus two rodent
hunters and a team leader have covered more
than 90 000 km on foot looking for signs
of rabbits, rats and mice.
There have been no confirmed
sightings of ship rats or house mice since
July 2011 and no confirmed sightings of
rabbits since December 2011.
The programme has resulted
in a dramatic recovery of the island’s flora
and fauna. Plant species that were at considerable
risk of extinction and those which give
Macquarie Island its distinctive character
such as tussock grass, Macquarie cabbage
and silver-leaf daisy are all showing a
remarkable recovery.
The blue petrel is now
breeding in a more widespread area on the
main island and terns are now able to breed
on cobblestone beaches. Grey petrels have
had their most successful breeding season
since recording of their populations commenced
in 2000.
Most of the dogs are
now enjoying a well earned retirement with
some continuing to work with Tasmanian Parks
and Wildlife Service.
I would like to thank
everyone who has been involved in this important
programme.
Background on Macquarie
Island
Macquarie Island is
roughly halfway between Tasmania and Antarctica
and is recognised as having one of the greatest
concentrations of seabirds in the world.
The island is renowned
for the spectacular beauty of its remote
and windswept landscape. Its steep escarpments,
lakes, and dramatic changes in vegetation
provide an outstanding spectacle of wild,
natural beauty and are complemented by vast
congregations of wildlife such as penguins
and seals.
Macquarie Island was
placed on the World Heritage List in 1997.
At almost 34 km long
and 5.5 km wide, Macquarie Island is the
only island in the world composed entirely
of oceanic crust and rocks from deep within
the earth’s structure or mantle. Ten million
years ago the rocky outcrops on the north
of the island began their journey from 6
km below the earth’s surface to the ocean’s
floor. Macquarie Island was born as the
rock and oceanic crust was squeezed upwards
in a 2.5 km journey to emerge above the
sea surface nearly 700 000 years ago.
A permit system administered
by the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service
allows just 1000 people to visit the island
each year.
