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The Times of India
The Times of India
World
TOI World Desk

In 2008, rats were removed from Hawadax Island; seabirds and kelp returned

Alaska's Hawadax Island, once known as Rat Island, offers one of conservation's clearest success stories. Invasive Norway rats, accidentally introduced by 18th-century shipwrecks and wartime shipping traffic, wiped out nesting seabirds and unravelled the island's rocky intertidal food web for two centuries. In 2008, scientists carried out a full eradication, removing every rat from the island. Eleven years later, a 2021 study titled ‘ Indirect effects of invasive rat removal result in recovery of island rocky intertidal community structure ’ in Scientific Reports confirmed seabirds had returned, and with them, a kelp-rich intertidal ecosystem resembling untouched islands nearby.

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