In 1995 just 51 rare snakes survived on one Caribbean island; 21 years later, they topped 1,100

In 1995, the Antiguan racer was perilously close to disappearing from the wild. Just 51 of these rare Caribbean snakes were estimated to survive, all confined to tiny Great Bird Island off the coast of Antigua. The species had little room to recover. Yet what followed became an extraordinary conservation turnaround. Over the next 21 years, researchers and conservation groups removed invasive mammals, carefully moved snakes to other islands and monitored their progress. By 2016, the population had climbed to more than 1,100 individuals, showing how targeted conservation can pull a species back from the brink.Removing black rats doubled the rare snake populationAccording to the research published on ResearchGate titled ‘ Successful reintroduction of the Critically Endangered Antiguan racer Alsophis antiguae to offshore islands in Antigua, West Indies’, one of the ways was to remove Black rats from Great Bird Island. A consortium involving Antiguan and international conservation organisations carried out the eradication in 1995. The result was striking: the racer population promptly doubled, and within two years it had more than doubled from its original level.But protecting the survi...