Lifestyle

TOPICS:

Previous

PAGE: 

1 ... 

314 | 315 | 316

 ... 954

Next

SomeOneUK

SomeOneUK

United Kingdom
June 2004

JUL 25, 2005 07:10 AM

Giant Mice on Gough Island, Tristan da Cunha have been eating albatross chicks alive. Ecologists fear a disaster unless action is taken to remove the stowaway mice from the islands.

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.


Whether these mice can be used to stop Michael Winner advertising car insurance in the UK remains to be seen.

Keith

Keith

Hooker, OK
August 2002

JUL 25, 2005 10:56 AM

Why are giant mice such..

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

...damn bastards?

tongue

RebeccaD

RebeccaD

Corn, OK
May 2004

JUL 25, 2005 10:57 AM

Keith said:
Why are giant mice such..

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

...damn bastards?

tongue



Don't you have work to do?

Keith

Keith

Hooker, OK
August 2002

JUL 25, 2005 10:58 AM

Popcorn said:

Keith said:
Why are giant mice such..

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

...damn bastards?

tongue



Don't you have work to do?



Look who's talking! tongue

gutterman

gutterman

Austin, TX
August 2003

JUL 25, 2005 11:06 AM

Ha ha. He said tits.

waldo

waldo

I'm lost
June 2004

JUL 25, 2005 12:15 PM

Grim.

fiendish

fiendish

USA
December 2002

JUL 25, 2005 12:24 PM

blue tits blush

Admiral_Pants

Admiral_Pants

Austin, TX
May 2004

JUL 25, 2005 01:07 PM



Had to post this before someone else did.

timmy55

timmy55

United Kingdom
October 2002

JUL 25, 2005 01:22 PM

I heard this story on the breakfast radio news this morning on my way to work. I was imagining people struggling to keep down their cereal as they heard a story about overgrown mice gnawing and eating albatross chicks alive. Nice.

"It is like a tabby cat attacking a hippopotamus" - interesting imagery.

As usual, it's humankind's fault for introducing the mice to the island in the first place...


[Edited because I apparently can't proof read.]

[Edited on Jul 25, 2005 by timmy55]

Cyprien

Cyprien

North Providence, RI
February 2005

JUL 25, 2005 08:37 PM

"As usual, it's humankind's fault for introducing the mice to the island in the first place..."

I watched a whole show about alien species (National Geographic, I believe), and it is amazing how many species have traveled throughout the world wreaking havoc on indigneous species. To make things worse we try to introduce preditors to kill the alien species and make the matter worse.