{"id":3499,"date":"2021-05-18T15:52:04","date_gmt":"2021-05-18T15:52:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.untoldstories.site\/?p=3499"},"modified":"2021-05-18T15:52:21","modified_gmt":"2021-05-18T15:52:21","slug":"feral-invasive-entanglements-in-the-galapagos-islands-rats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.untoldstories.site\/feral-invasive-entanglements-in-the-galapagos-islands-rats\/","title":{"rendered":"Feral, Invasive Entanglements in the Galapagos Islands: Rats"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Galapagos Islands<\/strong> are known for their richness in biological diversity. As the ocean islands, being remote from a continent, they have maintained a unique ecosystem made up of numerous endemic species and were designated as a World Natural Heritage site by UNESCO, who had appreciated their ecological value.<\/p>\n

The Galapagos Islands were remote and uncrowded islands in the past. However, people started to visit the islands from the 16th century; pirates, whaling ships and seal-catching boats often went in and out of the islands. In the 1800s, the Galapagos Islands were used as a place of exile as the Ecuadorian government had pushed ahead with the incorporation of the islands.<\/p>\n

The Galapagos Islands, which once remained as researchers\u2019 interest only, began to draw public attention and became a real tourist spot with the help of the success in stories of exploring the Galapagos Islands told in the 1920s and the designation as a national park in 1959. Fancy yachts, cruise ships, passenger planes and vessels with not only tourists but also inhabitants kept coming in and out of the islands, which finally brought many invasive species<\/strong> to the Galapagos Islands unknowingly or intentionally.<\/p>\n

Rats<\/strong> are one of the invasive species within the Galapagos Islands. They caused damage to the islands\u2019 ecology by preying on eggs and young of birds, reptiles and tortoises living there. Galapagos Doves<\/em> and Galapagos Storm Petrels<\/em> who nest on the ground were especially highly vulnerable to the rats. Galapagos Tortoises<\/em> in Pinz\u00f3n Island, an island in the Galapagos Islands, couldn\u2019t reproduce for even more than a century because of those rats.<\/p>\n

Even though three of the seven species of rice rats indigenous to the Galapagos Islands naturally became extinct due to the feral cats<\/strong>, their impact on the islands\u2019 ecology was still so large that people declared war on invasive species including rats.<\/p>\n

That Project Isabela \u2013 started in 1997 in order to get rid of #goats<\/strong> and pigs in the islands by Galapagos National Park and Charles Darwin Foundation \u2013 had successfully ended led to another project named Project Pinz\u00f3n. It was a project that started from small islands like North Seymour Island and R\u00e1bida Island and aimed to finally eradicate house rats in Pinz\u00f3n Island. The rats in North Seymour Island and R\u00e1bida Island were killed off in 2007 and 2011 respectively. In 2012, many helicopters were mobilized to spray an enormous amount of rat poison over Pinz\u00f3n Island. However, some people were concerned about biological magnification, especially the poisoning of Galapagos Hawks<\/em> that prey on rats, as one of the possible following results of spraying. Therefore, they captured all hawks in advance of spraying and released them six weeks later after the distribution of poison. But unfortunately, 16 of 60 hawks were dead as an unexpected consequence of the struggle with rats.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/shortcuts\/2019\/oct\/09\/millions-rats-uk-homes-fast-food-autumn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Galapagos Islands are known for their richness in biological diversity. As the ocean islands, being remote from a continent, they have maintained a unique ecosystem made up of numerous…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":3500,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,1],"tags":[125,126,124,122,123],"author_meta":{"display_name":"Mojito","author_link":"https:\/\/www.untoldstories.site\/author\/e4e80da53de7caa0e77a91794371c063\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/mlht9cvmhadr.i.optimole.com\/cb:L9LE~2ca85\/w:300\/h:300\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/f:best\/https:\/\/www.untoldstories.site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/rats.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Local Stories<\/a>","What is Nature Saying?<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Local Stories<\/span>","What is Nature Saying?<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["#cats<\/a>","#Galapagos Islands<\/a>","#goats<\/a>","#invasive species<\/a>","#Rats<\/a>"],"unlinked":["#cats<\/span>","#Galapagos Islands<\/span>","#goats<\/span>","#invasive species<\/span>","#Rats<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 3 years ago","modified":"Updated 3 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on May 18, 2021","modified":"Updated on May 18, 2021"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on May 18, 2021 3:52 pm","modified":"Updated on May 18, 2021 3:52 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/shortcuts\/2019\/oct\/09\/millions-rats-uk-homes-fast-food-autumn","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.untoldstories.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3499"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.untoldstories.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.untoldstories.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.untoldstories.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.untoldstories.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3499"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.untoldstories.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3507,"href":"https:\/\/www.untoldstories.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3499\/revisions\/3507"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.untoldstories.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.untoldstories.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.untoldstories.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.untoldstories.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}