عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Varieties

S.Africa Plans to ‘Bomb’ Mice That Eat Albatrosses Alive

Hordes of mice are devouring the eggs of some of the world's most important seabirds that nest on Marion Island, about 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) southeast of Cape Town. (AFP)
Hordes of mice are devouring the eggs of some of the world's most important seabirds that nest on Marion Island, about 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) southeast of Cape Town. (AFP)
TT
TT

S.Africa Plans to ‘Bomb’ Mice That Eat Albatrosses Alive

Hordes of mice are devouring the eggs of some of the world's most important seabirds that nest on Marion Island, about 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) southeast of Cape Town. (AFP)
Hordes of mice are devouring the eggs of some of the world's most important seabirds that nest on Marion Island, about 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) southeast of Cape Town. (AFP)

Conservationists said Saturday that they plan to bomb a remote South African island with tons of pesticide-laced pellets to kill mice that are eating albatrosses and other seabirds alive.

Hordes of mice are devouring the eggs of some of the world's most important seabirds that nest on Marion Island, about 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) southeast of Cape Town, and have started eating live birds, leading conservationist Mark Anderson said.

This includes the iconic Wandering Albatross, with a quarter of the world's population nesting on the Indian Ocean island.

"The mice have now, for the first time last year, been found to be feeding on adult Wandering Albatrosses," Anderson told a meeting of BirdLife South Africa, the country's leading bird conservation organization.

Gruesome images presented at the meeting showed bloodied birds, some with flesh chewed off their heads.

Of the 29 species of seabirds that breed on the island, 19 are threatened with local extinction, the Mouse-Free Marion Project said.

Mouse attacks have escalated in recent years but the birds do not know how to respond because they evolved without terrestrial predators, said Anderson, a leader of the project and CEO of BirdLife South Africa.

"Mice just climb onto them and just slowly eat them until they succumb," he told AFP. It can take days for a bird to die. "We are losing hundreds of thousands of seabirds every year through the mice."

- Extreme conditions -

Billed as one of the world's most important bird conservation efforts, the Mouse-Free Marion Project has raised about a quarter of the $29 million it needs to send a squad of helicopters to drop 600 tons of rodenticide-laced pellets onto the rugged island.

It wants to strike in 2027 in winter, when the mice are most hungry and the summer-breeding birds are largely absent.

The pilots will have to fly in extreme conditions and reach every part of the island, which is about 25 kilometers long and 17 kilometers wide.

"We have to get rid of every last mouse," Anderson said. "If there was a male and female remaining, they could breed and eventually get back to where we are now."

The mice are proliferating because warmer temperatures due to climate change means they are breeding more frequently over a longer period, Anderson said. After eating through plants and invertebrates, the mice turned to the birds.

House mice were introduced to the island in the early 1800s. Five cats were brought in around 1948 to control their numbers. But the cat numbers grew to about 2,000 and they were killing about 450,000 birds a year. An eradication project removed the last cat in 1991.

Most Viewed

 
 
Varieties

Archaeologists in Virginia Unearth Colonial-era Garden with Clues about Enslaved Gardeners

Colonial Williamsburg archaeologists continue their excavation of an 18th Century ornamental garden on Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Williamsburg, Va. (AP Photo/John C. Clark)
Colonial Williamsburg archaeologists continue their excavation of an 18th Century ornamental garden on Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Williamsburg, Va. (AP Photo/John C. Clark)
TT
TT

Archaeologists in Virginia Unearth Colonial-era Garden with Clues about Enslaved Gardeners

Colonial Williamsburg archaeologists continue their excavation of an 18th Century ornamental garden on Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Williamsburg, Va. (AP Photo/John C. Clark)
Colonial Williamsburg archaeologists continue their excavation of an 18th Century ornamental garden on Wednesday, July 31, 2024, in Williamsburg, Va. (AP Photo/John C. Clark)

Archaeologists in Virginia are uncovering one of colonial America's most lavish displays of opulence: An ornamental garden where a wealthy politician and enslaved gardeners grew exotic plants from around the world.

Such plots of land dotted Britain’s colonies and served as status symbols for the elite. They were the 18th-century equivalent of buying a Lamborghini.

The garden in Williamsburg belonged to John Custis IV, a tobacco plantation owner who served in Virginia's colonial legislature. He is perhaps best known as the first father-in-law of Martha Washington. She married future US President George Washington after Custis’ son Daniel died.

Historians also have been intrigued by the elder Custis’ botanical adventures, which were well-documented in letters and later in books. And yet this excavation is as much about the people who cultivated the land as it is about Custis, The AP reported.

“The garden may have been Custis’ vision, but he wasn’t the one doing the work,” said Jack Gary, executive director of archaeology at Colonial Williamsburg, a living history museum that now owns the property. “Everything we see in the ground that’s related to the garden is the work of enslaved gardeners, many of whom must have been very skilled.”

Archaeologists have pulled up fence posts that were 3 feet (1 meter) thick and carved from red cedar. Gravel paths were uncovered, including a large central walkway. Stains in the soil show where plants grew in rows.

The dig also has unearthed a pierced coin that was typically worn as a good-luck charm by young African Americans. Another find is the shards of an earthenware chamber pot, which was a portable toilet, that likely was used by people who were enslaved.

Animals appear to have been intentionally buried under some fence posts. They included two chickens with their heads removed, as well as a single cow’s foot. A snake without a skull was found in a shallow hole that had likely contained a plant.

“We have to wonder if we’re seeing traditions that are non-European,” Gary said. “Are they West African traditions? We need to do more research. But it’s features like those that make us continue to try and understand the enslaved people who were in this space.”

The museum tells the story of Virginia’s colonial capital through interpreters and restored buildings on 300 acres (120 hectares), which include parts of the original city. Founded in 1926, the museum did not start telling stories about Black Americans until 1979, even though more than half of the 2,000 people who lived there were Black, the majority enslaved.

In recent years, the museum has boosted efforts to tell a more complete story, while trying to attract more Black visitors. It plans to reconstruct one of the nation’s oldest Black churches and is restoring what is believed to be the country’s oldest surviving schoolhouse for Black children.

There also are plans to recreate Custis’ Williamsburg home and garden, known then as Custis Square. Unlike some historic gardens, the restoration will be done without the benefit of surviving maps or diagrams, relying instead on what Gary described as the most detailed landscape archaeology effort in the museum's history.

The garden disappeared after Custis' death in 1749. But the dig has determined it was about two-thirds the size of a football field, while descriptions from the time reference lead statues of Greek gods and topiaries trimmed into balls and pyramids.