Massive Eradication Effort Ends Rodents' Reign Of Terror On Forbidding Isle
Since humans came to South Georgia Island centuries ago, rats have terrorized rare native birds. But an ambitious project, using some plucky canine aides, has cleared the frigid wilderness.
by Colin Dwyer
May 10, 2018
3 minutes
There are no other birds quite like them in the world. The South Georgia pipit and pintail are so distinctive in the grand pantheon of ornithology, in fact, they draw their names from the one place they've made their home: South Georgia Island, sitting lonely in the forbidding South Atlantic not far from Antarctica.
Yet even in such a remote location, surrounded by penguins, fur seals and seemingly endless ocean, the birds have long been besieged by tiny alien invaders: rodents. Since the first European ships
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