NEWS: Albatrosses Eaten Alive by Giant Mice

More than a million albatross, shearwater and petrel chicks are being killed each year on Gough Island, eaten alive by overgrown rodents, scientists said yesterday.

Though the mice are three times larger than their European cousins, weighing as much as 1.41oz (40g), they are dwarfed by the fledgeling sea birds that have become their prey. An albatross chick weighs up to 22lb, some 250 times the weight of the rodents.

The birds, however, are virtually immobile and must be protected from attack by adults, who spend many hours away fishing for food. The mice gnaw the live chicks, their wounds become infected and they die. “It is like a tabby cat attacking a hippopotamus,” said Geoff Hilton, a senior research biologist with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).

“We think there are about 700,000 mice, which have somehow learnt to eat chicks alive — much like blue tits learned to peck [through] milk bottle tops.

“Gough Island hosts an astonishing community of seabirds and this catastrophe could make many extinct within decades.”

The British island, part of the Tristan da Cunha group, is uninhabited by human beings but home to 99 per cent of the world’s Tristan albatross and Atlantic petrel populations. These birds are the most frequently attacked. Only 2,000 Tristan albatross pairs remain.

Keith said:
Why are giant mice such..

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

...damn bastards?

Popcorn said:

Keith said:
Why are giant mice such..

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

...damn bastards?

Don't you have work to do?