Goff Island is infested with rats, why can they eat seabirds?

Because there are no natural predators on Gove Island, they are infested with rats, and in order to survive, these rats attack seabirds.

Because Gove Island is a small island in the sea, where rats lack natural predators, and food is sufficient, so they grow very big, at first they are just stealing seabird eggs and young birds to eat, when it is not the egg-laying season they gradually focus on seabirds, although birds are the natural enemies of mice, but can not bear the large number of these mice, and the size is huge, so rats began to beak seabirds.

A flood means that there is a shortage of food for rats, so rats will do everything they can to find food, and it is not surprising that hungry rats can eat seabirds.

Because some seabirds are still too young to fly, and some are still hatching eggs or injured, they will be eaten by mice.

The rats on Gough Island are invasive alien species, and the birds on the island, especially the albatrosses, have not been a fierce rival to the rats in their evolutionary process, and the albatrosses do not know how to defend against them, so when the rats attack or eat them, they have no way to resist. In order to prevent the albatross from becoming extinct, people tried some rodent extermination methods, such as cats, medicines, etc., because they would also kill the original creatures on the island. At present, there is no good way to treat these mice.

Because seabirds were breeding at that time, for the sake of offspring, conscientious seabirds would not easily leave the nest, and they had never seen rats before and did not know how to deal with mice, so they lacked the ability to defend themselves against mice.

Because these seabirds have little food to eat due to the rat infestation, they are weakened and about to die, so they have no strength to react to the rats' gnawing.

It's not that there is no reaction, it's that I don't know how to deal with it, because there is no such thing as mice in the evolution of these seabirds, not to mention that the mice here are extremely huge, and they are powerless to resist to cause the young birds to be gnawed.

The Earth's oceans are vast, and there are many islands in the oceans. Because of their remoteness, these islands are basically sparsely populated and isolated, so there are no traces of human presence on them, which also makes the creatures have a very good habitat. For example, the British territory between South America and South Africa, Gough Island, is a paradise for birds.

According to scientists, there are at least tens of millions of birds, many of which are rare species.

However, the island of Gove is now invaded by an alien species, and it is also a very fertile rodent - rats. These rats had no natural predators on Gough Island, so they began to breed in large numbers and began to prey on the island's seabirds. At present, the rats on Gove Island have evolved into an uncontrollable situation, and many seabirds are eaten alive by rats every day, and what is even stranger is that these seabirds seem to be so frightened that they can't even escape.

What's going on? Let's take a look at how these rats invaded Gough Island. Rats are known to not swim, so humans are the only ones who have allowed these rats to successfully invade.

According to the information, in the 19th century, whaling ships discovered Gough Island, and later Golf Island became a resting place for them. And the rats that had been secretly hiding on the whaling ship also slipped onto Gough Island and began to settle on the island.

We know that when a species enters a completely new environment, they begin to evolve differently in order to survive, and the rats that invade Gough Island breed from generation to generation, and they become "big guys". As a result, rats, which did not eat birds, took seabirds and eggs as their own food, completely changing the original ecological structure of Gough Island and plunging seabirds into the "end times".

Scientists have finally discovered the changes on Gough Island. However, it was too late to redeem it, and after more than 100 years of evolution, Gough Island had completely become the territory of the rats. On the island, rats are everywhere, and each of them is a "giant rat".

At the same time, scientists observed that all but one of the 58 birds' nests successfully hatched a young bird, and all the rest were eaten by mice.

Many precious birds are about to become endangered because of rats, and scientists have also thought of many ways to get rid of rats, but they have had little effect. In fact, rats are one of the four pests, and humans have always wanted to eliminate them but have no way to eliminate them. Therefore, the birds on Gough Island are left to "resign themselves to fate" in the end.

Perhaps, this is the cruel law of nature, what do you think?

It's not that seabirds don't know how to hide, it's because there are so many rats on the island. The strong population of rats makes it impossible for seabirds to hide.

The main reason is that there are too many rats, there is no way to avoid them in time, and there are many rats around a seabird, beating in groups, so they can't dodge.

Because seabirds lay eggs on the beach, rats eat their eggs when they are hungry, and they don't hide from them to protect their offspring.

Seabirds have no way to deal with rats because they don't eat rats at all. And because of the lack of natural predators, there are too many rats, and these inexperienced seabirds are even more vulnerable.

1. Seabirds used to live very happily

Owned by the United Kingdom, this inhospitable island has been a haven for birds since tens of thousands of years ago, with dozens of rare species of birds living here. Although the island is not large, the various birds that live on it are very happy and harmonious. For these birds, their reproduction speed is limited to a certain extent, after all, the space of the island is limited, and the resources on the island are limited, so they will not have the problem of reproduction, and they have been developing very harmoniously for tens of thousands of years.

If it weren't for the arrival of rats, it is believed that these birds would have been able to survive much happier.

Second, the whaling ship brought rats

Originally, the island was deserted, but a whaling ship came to the island a hundred years ago and brought rats to the island as well. The destructive power of rats is amazing, and I believe everyone knows it very well. They eat everything, and they have an amazing ability to reproduce.

Their natural predators are snakes and eagles and, of course, humans. But there are no other animals on this island except birds. In other words, rats have no natural predators here, and bird eggs are still ready-made food.

There are no natural predators, food is plentiful, and what could be more suitable for breeding than such conditions. For rats, the island is like paradise. In just a few years, their numbers are already staggering, and according to incomplete statistics, millions of birds are eaten on the island every year.

Some of the young birds have even learned how to fly before they have become a meal for these mice.

Third, the absence of natural predators makes rats reproduce wildly

There are no snakes, no eagles, and no humans on this island, so they have nothing to fear. No matter how harsh the environment is, rats can survive. And there is an inexhaustible supply of food on this island, which is simply a breeding ground for them.

In fact, this kind of invasion of alien species with human intervention is not the first time, and there have been many cases in China. For example, crayfish is an alien species, but this alien species is too humble, and at present, China even has to rely on breeding. But on Gough Island, there is nothing to eat mice, and of course we can't help this creature.

Fourth, if this problem is not solved, there is a high probability that the birds on the island will become extinct

This group of rats, which have no natural predators, is likely to eat these birds to extinction. If no measures are taken, biodiversity could be reduced again. The easiest way to do this is to put eagles on the island, as snakes actually eat birds' eggs.

But if you do, you need to consider whether the eagle can adapt to the local climate, and which breed can suppress this problem. After all, rats have become infested, and it is very difficult to change the problem. In addition, although this method is simple, it is also very risky, and a better method still needs time to take it slowly**.

There are dozens of rare species of seabirds living on Gove Island, which have been breeding here for thousands of years, and rats were inadvertently brought by humans more than a hundred years ago, rats have no natural predators here, and now they breed to millions and feed on the island's seabirds, which lack the skills to deal with rats, and finally can only be reduced to a meal for mice.

In the South Atlantic, 1,000 nautical miles from Cape Town, South Africa, there is an island with an area of 91 square kilometers, which is an overseas territory of the United Kingdom, and more than 100 species live on the island, some of which are even endemic to the island.

It is also an important habitat for seabirds, with dozens of rare species of birds living on the island, totaling more than 10 million birds, and the abundant fish resources around the island, as well as the island's well-established ecosystem, have created favorable conditions for these seabirds to reproduce and live, such as a large number of albatrosses.

But things have changed now, and human activities have brought great disaster to the island's seabirds, and more than 160 years ago, whaling humans first came here and inadvertently brought with them an animal that had never been seen on the island before - rats.

Rats are very common on the mainland, and there are many natural predators, but the rats that come to Gough Island are like entering heaven, they have no natural predators here, so the rat population has expanded rapidly, and the number of rats on the island now exceeds 1 million.

This brought great disaster to the birds that thrived on the islands, these rats fed on eggs and young, and due to Foster's law of biology (after large mammals survive on small islands, their offspring become smaller, while small mammals become larger), mice become larger and larger, and can grow to 25 cm in length, twice the size of their previous bodies on the mainland.

The island's original seabirds, because they have never dealt with rats and lack of experience in dealing with mice, rats are nocturnal, and when the island's adult seabirds encounter mice, they only flee for their lives, resulting in their young birds eventually being eaten by mice, and even sometimes adult seabirds are gnawed and do not know how to resist.

British ornithologists have studied that in one season, the seabirds on Gove Island start laying eggs, only a few young birds live to fly, and the rest are basically eaten by mice, and the number of young birds eaten on the island every year is as high as millions, and researchers have found traces of rat invasion in almost all the nests of round-tailed shearwaters.

Fortunately, scientists have noticed the situation of seabirds on Gough Island and called for social concern, and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has also organized personnel to drop rat poison on the island to alleviate the rodent plague on the island.

It can be seen that biological invasion is a very terrible thing, which will greatly destroy the original ecology of the local area and change the level of local species; It is also believed that the release of rat poison on Gove Island can control the number of rats in a short period of time, but it is still impossible to kill all the rats, and it may also kill all kinds of seabirds by mistake, which is always a cure for the root cause.

Because these rats don't eat real seabirds, they eat their eggs. After laying eggs, a seabird can't look at the eggs 24 hours a day, and he has to go out to forage for food, so he can't take the mice.

The rats of Gough Island, which followed the sealers who first discovered the island, initially had little effect on the number of seabirds, but after adapting to their new habitat, the rats became larger, and now the Gorf Island rats are twice the size of the average house mouse and have a stronger bite force, and the seabirds on Golf Island have always been threatened by foreign invaders.

Of course, there is no way, there is no shortage of rats in seabirds, and rats have no natural predators on this island, if you want to really get rid of these mice, I am afraid that there will still be human intervention.

Gove Island has always had a good ecological environment, is an important habitat for seabirds, there are countless species of rare birds living on the island, knowing that more than 100 years ago, whaling humans came to this island with mice, and because there are no natural predators to reproduce quickly, seabirds also do not know how to resist because they have never encountered this creature, and adult birds even abandon young birds when they encounter mice.

Now the island is infested with rats. Scientists count about 700,000 mice. And these rats seem to have become sperm, and they are three times the size of ordinary mice.

So he became the biggest rat in the world. They eat a lot of seabirds every year. The birds did not react in any self-defense.

Scientists say they haven't evolved a response to an attack.

The seabirds that are attacked by rats are young birds that have not been exposed to rat attacks after leaving the supervision of their parents, and the rats on Gove Island are three times larger than the rats in the house and are more aggressive.