Sea Bird Isle Romance.
Exterminating Bats on Ailsa Craig.
A FIERCE fight between sea birds and rats for supremacy oil Ailsa Craig, the great rocky islet that stands sentinel at the entrance to the Firth of Clyde, lias ended, thanks to the intervention of human beings, in the rout of the rodents. The rock, which is about two miles in circumference, rises to a height of
1097 feet, and is nearly perpendicular on all sides. The story of tho fight for posses sion is told in a recent issue of ‘* Bird Notes and News.” For ages Aiisa Craig had been one of the two great British breeding-places
of the gannet, or solan goose, while it was also a home for tens of thousands of guillemots, puffins, kittiwakes, gulls, and other sea birds. There, undisturbed by man or beast, they found safe sanctuary. But about thirty years ago tlie enemy made a breach in the stronghold. A few rats, swimming ashore from a wreck in the vicinity, established themselves on the island, and multiplied at such a rat© that soon they swarmed over the whole rock. “Last summer,” says an eye-witness, •• they were to l>o found everywhere, swarming round the quarry buildings and dwelling houses, and on the shore and cliffs.” Vs the disappeared. • In 1924 (says “Bird Note. and News”) very few could be seen. Tlie puffin nests in a. burrow on the slopes and lays its eg£* at the end of the burrow. The result is that the puffins fall them from various sides and eat the eggs and the young birds. “ Rats are also terribly dearm tive when young guillemots and razor-bills, unable to fly, am making their way down the slopes of the crag to tlie sea, and many arts found half oaten.” In December last the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds contracted with a London firm to exterminate the rats, and poison was used .->> effectively that a few"w<V.\s mi loident of tho
island was able to write: — It is impossible to estimate the- munber"* of rats destroyed, but it must amount to thousands and tliougunds. This is tha quietest winter from rats we have had for at least 20 years. More recent evidence froifi Ails% Craig is in the following terms:— On my first- visit hero 1 found the island swarming with rats, the vermin being so numera l- ' -- ' ants of the inland would tread on them when going out at night. 1 investigated during my re- » : nt visit every nook Mind corner, and could fir..l scant trace of living rats, and in eom© places there were signs that the grass mu covering their tracks. Everywhere J noticed skeletons and ca cases of dead rats. Jt should be noted that the Birds and animal?, even though they may liavo eaten the bait, havo tiofc I I - c.unpaisn has cost £l6O, and r®viore• I Ai 1 ■ i i'» it= •»1 rl position a»
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Bibliographic details
Star (Christchurch), Issue 17575, 27 June 1925, Page 17 (Supplement)
Word Count
488Sea Bird Isle Romance. Star (Christchurch), Issue 17575, 27 June 1925, Page 17 (Supplement)
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