In 1958, Clipperton Island was a very different place from the huge seabird colony it would later become. The tiny Pacific atoll had once supported thousands of breeding birds, but decades of human occupation had left a heavy mark. Feral pigs, introduced when people settled on the island, had multiplied and were feeding on land crabs and disturbing nesting birds. When American ornithologist Kenneth Stager arrived, only about 650 Brown and Masked Boobies remained. He removed all 58 pigs from the island. The change that followed was gradual but striking. With the pigs gone, land crabs recovered, vegetation was kept in check, and the open ground favoured by the boobies remained available. By 2003, aerial photographs showed more than 137,000 Brown and Masked Boobies breeding on Clipperton, turning a story of ecological damage into one of the most striking seabird recoveries recorded on an isolated island.
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