ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Two centuries after rats first landed on a remote Aleutian island from a shipwreck, wildlife managers in Alaska are plotting how to evict the non-native rodent from the island that bears their name.
Rat Island, like many other treeless, volcanic islands in the 1,000-mile (1,609-km) long Aleutian chain, is infested with rats that have proved devastating to wild birds that build nests in the earth or in rocky cliffs.
Its unfortunate that Cleveland Amory and other uneducated wildlife experts aren't around to mount a campaign to "save" these useless rats. For as long as I have been a wildlife biologist I have never understood why the influence of rich people from New York who have never studied biology or wildlife holds sway over the opinions and experience of professional wildlife biologists. But they do. Just watch some uneducated "expert" with a degree in merchandising come out and proclaim that its immoral to kill the rats on Rat Island. In the end, politics will bend and the rats will stay while the native wildlife continues to get fucked. It happens every time.
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