The last residents of St Kilda left the remote Scottish archipelago in 1930, bringing an end to a human community that had survived on the islands for generations. The departure’s impact went far beyond the social history of the isolated settlement. Within around 18 months, the St Kilda house mouse, a population that was closely associated with human habitation, became extinct. On the other hand, the islands’ already-established field mice expanded into abandoned buildings that were previously occupied almost exclusively by house mice.
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