Friday, March 2, 2012

18-month project plucks all cats from San Nicolas Island | Pet Pro Plus

It took 18 months, cost $3 million and involved six agencies, but California?s San Nicolas Island has been officially declared cat-free after one of the world?s biggest efforts to remove an invasive species from an area, the Los Angeles Times and Ventura County Star report.

The Star?describes the project this way:

The Navy struggled for years to remove the cats, which were eating nesting seabirds such as western seagulls and Brandt?s cormorants, as well as competing with the native San Nicolas Island fox for resources. The cats were also eating the island night lizard, a threatened species that lives among the boulders and coreopsis that cover the island.

The Times?reports that much of the funding came from the Montrose Settlements Restoration Program while the removal itself was led by Island Conservation, a non-profit that eradicates invasives species on islands around the world.

Getting rid of the cats, which were likely the descendants of pets brought to the island by military personnel in the 1950s, was no easy task. Poison was not an option and hunting dogs proved useless because they got sidetracked looking for foxes. Nor did the cats fall for digitally recorded meows.

In the end, the project used bobcat trackers, high-tech sensors and 250 custom-built traps that flashed computer alerts to researchers miles away.

In 2009 and 2010, the Times reports, planes ferried more than 50 cats, unharmed, off the island, then teams kept on the lookout for lingerers until they could now declare the island, which is 60 miles off the coast west of Los Angeles, ?cat-free.?

The Star reports that the Humane Society of the United States offered to pay for and care for the 8- to 10-pound cats at a specially built facility at the Fund for Animals Wildlife Center in Ramona, Calif.

The removal, says the Star, is the fifth-largest such project in the world and the largest that didn?t use poison.

Source: http://www.petproplus.com/2012/02/29/18-month-project-plucks-all-cats-from-san-nicolas-island/

indianapolis colts posterior michelle obama adam lambert arrested shroud of turin barkley beltran

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.