A purported sighting of a rat wouldn’t get much attention in many places around the world.
But it caused a stir earlier this year on Alaska’s Saint Paul Island.
Wildlife officials responded quickly, combing through grasses and setting up traps and cameras. And while they have so far not found any evidence of a rat, they are maintaining a heightened level of vigilance.
That’s because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate on remote islands, devastating bird populations and upending once-vibrant ecosystems.
Saint Paul Island is part of the Pribilofs, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galápagos of the north” for its diversity of life.
“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,” said Lauren Divine, director of the Aleut community of Saint Paul Island’s ecosystem conservation office.
The anxiety on Saint Paul Island is the latest development amid longstanding efforts to get or keep non-native rats off some of the most remote, but ecologically diverse, islands in Alaska and around the world.
Rodents have been removed successfully from hundreds of islands worldwide – including one in Alaska’s Aleutian chain formerly known as “Rat Island,” according to the US fish and wildlife service. But such efforts can take years and cost millions of dollars, so prevention is considered the best defense.
Around the developed areas of Saint Paul Island, officials have set out blocks of wax – “chew blocks” – designed to record any telltale incisor bites. Some of the blocks are made with ultraviolet material, which allow inspectors armed with black lights to search for glowing droppings.
They also have asked residents to be on the lookout for any rodents and are seeking permission to have the US agriculture department bring a dog to the island to sniff out any rats. Canines are otherwise banned from the Pribilofs to protect fur seals.
There have been no traces of any rats since the reported sighting this summer. But the hunt and heightened state of vigilance is likely to persist for months.
Divine likened the search to trying to find a needle in a haystack “and not knowing if a needle even exists”.
The community of about 350 people – clustered on the southern tip of a treeless island marked by rolling hills, rimmed by cliffs and battered by storms – has long had a rodent surveillance program that includes rat traps near the airport and at developed waterfront areas where vessels arrive, designed to detect or kill any rats that might show up.
Still, it took nearly a year to catch the last known rat on Saint Paul Island, which was believed to have hopped off a barge. It was found dead in 2019 after it evaded the community’s initial defenses. That underscores why even an unsubstantiated sighting is taken so seriously, Divine said.
The US fish and wildlife service is planning an environmental review to analyze eradicating the potentially tens of thousands of rats on four uninhabited islands in the far-flung, volcano-pocked Aleutian chain, hundreds of miles south-west of Saint Paul Island. More than 10 million seabirds of varying species nest in the Aleutians.
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