RESIDENTS on an Alaskan island known as the “Galapagos of the North” have been searching for what they believe is a harbinger of doom.
Locals living in Saint Paul Island, Alaska have been hunting a rat after a resident thought they spotted unwanted guest three months earlier.
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Rats don’t currently exist on the island, and the locals want to keep it that way.
While the 480 island residents are unsure if the rodent exists, they are searching high and low for signs of the unwanted visitor.
Officials have put out traps baited with peanut butter, wax “chew blocks”, and trail cameras to try to catch it.
The “chew blocks” mark any bites from rats and are created with ultraviolet material that makes the rat’s droppings glow under black light.
However, the tiny rodent has evaded capture, and officials haven’t seen any signs of the unwanted guest.
Despite tight rat security, the island did have a rat stowaway in 2018.
The filthy rodent was able to evade capture for 10 months before it was found dead in 2019.
If not found, the small pest could spell catastrophe for the local thriving seabird population.
The hunt for the unwanted visitor comes after rat tracks were discovered on the black sands of Kiska Island, a remote island near Saint Paul Island.
The uninhabited island, is part of several other islands including, Amchitka, Attu, and Great Sitkin, where the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service aims to study potential rat eradication efforts.
A statement from the U.S Fishing and Wildlife Service said: “Rats on islands within the archipelago are a major threat to seabirds and other birds of all ages.
“The negative impact of rats is not limited to seabird mortality – they can change entire island ecosystems.
“Eradication efforts on other islands see positive recovery of plant communities, and songbird populations.”
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Rats have previously have taken over other remote islands and obliterated their bird populations, feasting on bird eggs, chicks, and sometimes adult birds.
Once rats take control of an island, it often takes millions of dollars and several years to exterminate them all.
Saint Paul Island is known for its thriving seabird population and diverse ecosystem worldwide.
It is the breeding ground for more than 500,000 northern fur seals and millions of seabirds and is surrounded by one of the world’s richest fishing grounds.
Lauren Divine, director of the Aleut Community of Saint Paul Island’s ecosystem conservation office said: “We know because we’ve seen this on other islands and in other locations in Alaska and across the world, that rats absolutely decimate seabird colonies.
“So the threat is never one that the community would take lightly.”
Divine likened the search to trying to find a needle in a haystack “and not knowing if a needle even exists.”
Donald Lyons, director of conservation science with the National Audubon Society’s Seabird Institute said: “It’s just the abundance of wildlife that we hear stories or read historical accounts of, but really seldom see in kind of our modern age.
“And so (St Paul) really is a place where I’ve felt the wonder, the spectacle of nature.”
Saint Paul Island is the largest of the Pribilof Islands off the coast of Alaska in the Bering Sea.
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