Killer rodents that feast on vulnerable birds and turtles have been wiped out from a paradise island.
The black rats which eat eggs and chicks were first discovered there just four years ago.
But their prodigious reproductive rates meant precious wildlife could soon be wiped out.
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North West Island is off Gladstone, Queensland, Australia.
It has 70 per cent of Australia’s east coast wedge-tailed shearwater breeding population.
An estimated 100,000 of them live there.
And 70,000 black noddies nest in the island’s Pisonia trees every summer.
The island is also a nesting site for the vulnerable green and endangered loggerhead turtles.
It is part of the Capricornia Cays National Park and Great Barrier Reef World Heritage protected area, as reported by Need To Know.
Rangers believe the rats made it to the island as stowaways on boats or hidden in camping equipment taken there by visitors.
They were reported to the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service, QPWS, in November 2022.
Following the reports, monitoring confirmed that black rats had spread throughout the island.
A single breeding pair can create a population in the thousands inside a year.
The pests eat seabirds, their eggs and chicks, vegetation and turtle eggs and hatchlings.
“The confirmation that black rats had spread around the island was disappointing because mice were declared as eradicated from the island just three months earlier,” senior ranger Damon Shearer said.
“Due to the size of the island, dropping aerial baits by helicopter was the most effective form of treatment, but we used bait stations and trapping to reduce the impacts on seabirds and turtles.
“The eradication program took 18 months, and the team frequently altered our tactics and adapted to the rats’ changing behaviour.
“After the eradication program was finished, we used remote cameras and Black Trakka traps to monitor for rats.
“Twelve months of intensive monitoring has shown no evidence of black rats, and rangers and Gidarjil Land and Sea Rangers are proud of the hard work that went into protecting the island.
“As the school holidays approach, we’re asking visitors to North West Island to check all equipment for rats and mice before departure and to arrive at the island pest-free.”
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