Tuvalu’s rat removal is bringing birds and coconut crabs back to six islets

On small islands scattered across the Pacific, changes in wildlife can be surprisingly easy to notice. A few more birds along the shoreline, coconut crabs appearing where they had become scarce, or native animals moving through places they once avoided can all point to a shift in the balance of an ecosystem. In Tuvalu, that shift has followed a large-scale effort to remove invasive species from several islets. According to Island Conservation, rats have now been eradicated from six islands, while work on invasive yellow crazy ants and mosquitoes has also reduced their numbers. The project involved local residents, government departments and conservation groups, with the aim of giving native wildlife a better chance to recover and keeping the islands useful for the communities that live there.Tuvalu rat eradication removes invasive predators from six islandsThe rat eradication covered four small islands in Nukufetau Atoll: Sakalua, Motumua, Teafuone and Teafuatule along with two islets in Funafuti Atoll. For Tuvalu, where land is limited and individual islands can support important breeding and feeding grounds, removing a predator that does not naturally belong there can have conseq...