In 2011, up to 30,000 rats were eradicated from Palmyra Atoll; five years later native tree seedlings jumped from fewer than 150 to more than 7,700
- Representative imageIn 2011, conservation teams set out on one of the biggest rat eradications ever on a tropical atoll, targeting an estimated 30,000 invasive rodents on Palmyra Atoll in the central Pacific.
- The goal was not just to remove a pest, but to restore an entire ecosystem that had been suppressed for more than a century.
- Five years after the last rat was declared gone, the results were striking: native tree seedlings, once reduced to fewer than 150 across the atoll, surged to more than 7,700, signalling a dramatic rebound of the original forest.
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- Representative imageIn 2011, conservation teams set out on one of the biggest rat eradications ever on a tropical atoll, targeting an estimated 30,000 invasive rodents on Palmyra Atoll in the central Pacific.
- The goal was not just to remove a pest, but to restore an entire ecosystem that had been suppressed for more than a century.
- Five years after the last rat was declared gone, the results were striking: native tree seedlings, once reduced to fewer than 150 across the atoll, surged to more than 7,700, signalling a dramatic rebound of the original forest.
Sources: Times of India