S.Atlantic : Brighter future for Ascension's Seabird Colonies
Submitted by SARTMA.com (Juanita Brock) 18.12.2004 (Article Archived on 05.02.2005)
One of the world’s most important seabird colonies now has a brighter future, thanks to an innovative project, which has taken place on Ascension Island.
Photo(c) J. Brock (SARTMA-ASI) Brown Noddies and Boobies on Boatswainbird Island. The seabirds of Ascension, until recently, had been banished to stacks and islets by wild cats.
BRIGHTER FUTURE FOR ASCENSION’S SEABIRD COLONIES
Brown Noddies and Boobies on Boatswainbird Island
A Report for BBC World Service “Calling the Falklands” by June Christie and Dee Palmer 17/12/04
Bait awaiting a wild cat's attention
Rugged terrain made it difficult for people in the field to do their work
One of the world’s most important seabird colonies now has a brighter future, thanks to an innovative project, which has taken place on Ascension Island. When it was colonised by Europeans in 1815, Ascension was thought to host some 20 million individual seabirds. But when wild cats were introduced to the Island in the early 19th century to deal with the Island’s rat problem, 98% of the seabirds disappeared. And, their numbers dwindled to just 400,000. But thanks to the Ascension Island Seabird Restoration Project, the wild cats have now been eradicated and 203 pairs of 5 species of birds have been encouraged back on to the Island. In a ceremony this week, Tara George, the Conservation Officer on Ascension, was given the Marsh Award for International Bird Conservation. Dee Palmer (DP) went along to the ceremony at the FCO, where she began to speaking to Norman Radcliff (NR), Research Biologist for the RSPB and responsible for Seabird Research.
NR: This is a very remarkable achievement, really. The actual eradication started in about 2001. So, most of the cats had gone by the start of this year. The Island is very large – it’s 93 sq km. And, it is very rugged, so it’s very harsh terrain.
DP: What difference is it going to make to Ascension’s seabird population?
NR: The difference it’s going to make is going to be enormous. Before this, there was about 7,000 Sooty Terns being killed every year and all the other seabird species had been extricated to all the stacks and islets around the coast, where they are really limited by available breeding space. Now that the cats are gone they can come and breed more successfully on the mainland, now they have more room. This should restore their population back to how they were previously.
JC: Dee also spoke to Tara George (TG), the Ascension Island Government Conservation Officer. How did she feel about getting this award?
TG: It’s a nice achievement but an achievement of many people, which I’d like to recognise.
DP: Your colleagues in Ascension Conservation.
TG: Yes. Obviously, the people on the ground also the Ascension Island Government, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and various organisations and individuals that have been involved.
DP: What were the technical problems of clearing Ascension Island of these wild cats?
TG: Obviously, the terrain. Ascension has a volcanic landscape so it was a challenge to set out the grids and all of these things. It means that our people in the field had to walk long distances. A lot of the terrain you can’t get to by vehicle, so it involves a lot of physical work.
DP: And the work getting rid of the wild cats really has been the start. You are moving on to all kinds of other projects in nature conservation on Ascension.
TG: Exactly. We are looking at establishing protected areas. Legislation for that has already been passed. And, we have a second round of public consultation, so it will actually come into place quite soon. We are running a pilot protected areas project. We are establishing Green Mountain as a national park and we have extended our monitoring to Marine monitoring of Dolphins, endemic fish and Whales. Part of the project is to look at a policy for protecting endemic plants. So, we have quite a few areas that we are broadening out into.
DP: And also broadening out into eco-tourism, I gather.
TG: We are trying to do that as well. Obviously the key thing is the more we can be self-funding and self-financing, the more we can progress and achieve our goals. If we are constantly dependent on fragile funding, obviously, that’s finite. And, our aim is at some stage to be self-financing and self-funding. Obviously that means, for the Island, that people can actually see economic benefits as well as a result of conservation initiatives.
DP: Finally, I gather you are doing consultancy work. You were in St. Helena quite recently, I understand.
TG: Yes. We work quite closely with St. Helena and they have a project there at the moment to set up seabird and turtle monitoring. So, one of the concepts I am keen on is that between the South Atlantic Islands. We work together and often we constantly look to external consultancies. In actual fact, locally, there are people who know the job and have the expertise. But we never seem to be able to share it amongst ourselves. Hopefully, rather than it being just me, I hope to promote the concept of sharing expertise among the South Atlantic Islands.
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