September 19, 2007

Macquarie Island dog plan still in the works

Macquarie Island is a sub Antartic island located between Australia and Tasmania. For years it has been plagued with "rodent" infestation. Actually with new scientific findings the island is infested with Lagomorphs – the family to which the rabbits belong to now. The rabbits are descendants from several rabbits brought by sealers in the 1800's. By the 1980's the dreaded disease myxomatosis was expected to make the rabbits number dwindle. Unexpectedly they blew up to a population of 100,000 to date.

The following years saw not only the rabbits population on the rise but even the rats began to scourge the island. The Macquarie officials plan to allocate a 24M budget that will be spread out over 7 years for an operation to continuously work on purging the pests (lagomorphs and rodents).

To protect the Island of Macquarie heritage, handlers and dogs will be used to track and flush the rodents but not kill outright. The government of Macquarie proposes a sure fire and efficient way to kill the pests. As soon as a burrow is traced, a poison potent enough to wipe out the hutch will be dropped in the hole. It is perceived that more pests will be killed this way. To have handlers and dogs spend too much time on hunting and killing may prolong the project. The poison helps eradicate several animals in one go.

Project Manager Keith Springer has a list of the dozen dogs and handlers set to be part of the 2009 program. While a wide-spread aerial baiting project will be done to purge the rat and mice pests plaguing the island.

In the hope of sustaining the Island 's heritage, deals for using more handlers and dogs is underway to reach the projected date of completion.

Filed under Blog by Megan M.