From stowaway to supersize predator: the mice eating rare seabirds alive

[muriel_volestrangler]

Today, the British-owned island, described as the home of the most important seabird colony in the world, still hosts 22 breeding species and is a world heritage site.

But as a terrible consequence of the first whalers making landfall there 150 years ago, Gough has become the stage for one of nature's great horror shows. Mice stowed away on the whaling boats jumped ship and have since multiplied to 700,000 or more on an island of about 25 square miles.

What is horrifying ornithologists is that the British house mouse has somehow evolved, growing to up to three times the size of ordinary domestic house mice, and instead of surviving on a diet of insects and seeds, has adapted itself to become a carnivore, eating albatross, petrel and shearwater chicks alive in their nests. They are now believed to be the largest mice in the world. Yesterday Birdlife International, a global alliance of conservation groups, recognised that the mice, who are without predators themselves, are out of control and threatening to make extinct several of the world's rarest bird species.
...
The RSPB has proposed hiring helicopters to drop thousands of tonnes of rodent poison on the of the volcanic island 2,000 miles off the coast of south America. "A government-funded feasibility study done with New Zealand, which has eradicated rats from many islands, shows it is possible. The mice would take the poison and just go to their nests and die. We think it could be done fairly easily and would cost about £2.6m," a spokeswoman said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/20/wildlife.endangeredspecies

They appear to have evolved into the 'rat' niche. I presume there are none of those in the island, since they're not mentioned.

[TechBear_Seattle]

1. Evolution in action, but don't tell the creationists!

I would love to send "researchers" with the Creation Institute to this island with the demand, "Find me transitional forms from the mouse of 150 years ago to the mouse of today."

[Gman]

2. And they say evolution cannot be observed

as it is over too long a period of time.

[Xipe Totec]

3. If it's now a bona fide new species, is it ethical to exterminate it? nt

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. 'New species' would mean it's unable to mate with other mice

about which I would guess they have no idea, yet. But it has evolved, as in "changed the genotype", in response to a new environment, and isolation from other mice that live in the old environment - exactly what theories of natural selection predict.

Personally, I'd say that even if it is a new species, it's ethical to exterminate it. It endangers other species, has come about because of our actions, and could probably be produced by artificial selective breeding, if we wanted to. I suppose you could say "capture a few of them take them off the island, and keep them in captivity", but I wouldn't really see the point. We were happy to eradicate smallpox from the wild, and we can treat this in the same way.

[navarth]

5. maybe not exterminate it, but at least control the population

catch them, sterilize, don't let the numbers get so big that they endanger the bird population.

[Mojorabbit]

6. I wonder what kind of poison

they are planning to use. I hope they are taking into account any raptors or other species that may eat the mice. they must have some predators.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. It's quite possible they have no raptors there at all

since there wouldn't have been a mammal population for them to survive on (though I suppose raptors might go for seabird chicks too). It's about 1500 miles from the nearest continent (Africa) - maybe no breeding population of raptors has ever been blown there.