Marshall Islands Experience Explosion of Wildlife One Year After Invasive Rats Were Removed

Marshall Islands Experience Explosion of Wildlife One Year After Invasive Rats Were Removed

Reprinted with Permission from World at Large Two small islets crucial to the resiliency of the local environment in the Marshall Islands Republic are witnessing a major ecological revival. Island Conservation, a global nonprofit organization with a mission to restore islands for nature and people, has successfully eradicated invasive black rats, allowing the native forests […] The post Marshall Islands Experience Explosion of Wildlife One Year …

Removing rats helps revive forests, birds & coral in the Marshall Islands

On Bikar Atoll and Jemo Islet of the Marshall Islands, seabirds are returning, forests are regrowing and coral reefs are recovering. And it all stems from the removal of a single invasive pest: rats. Rats were once so abundant on Bikar and Jemo that they "utterly dominated the lower levels of the forest," Paul Jacques, project manager with the nonprofit Island Conservation (IC), told Mongabay by email. "It was impossible to walk more than twenty…