Killing cats to restore island backfires as rabbits take over
Sunday, January 18, 2009 - 01:33
in Paleontology & Archaeology
In the 1800s, sailors brought rats, then cats, then rabbits to sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island, hurting native species. Attempts to reverse the damage failed. Now it's all-out scientific war. Two attempts to reverse a man-made environmental catastrophe on a tiny sub-Antarctic island have backfired, necessitating the implementation of a $16-million rescue plan and providing a warning for scientists attempting to remove invasive species in other regions of the world.