Rabbits are busy eating the sub-antarctic Macquarie Island. Ok, they're actually eating all the vegetation, which is causing the island to fall apart, with erosion and landslides now common. Meanwhile, the folks from the World Wide Fund for Nature are worried that the mice on the island might suddenly decide to become carnivorous and start eating the birds. (We can't make this stuff up).
The conservation group is calling on the government to implement a 25 million dollar (21 million US) strategy to eradicate rabbits, rats and mice on the sub-Antarctic territory.
WWF spokesman Andreas Glanznig said it was possible that mice, which have been shown to become carnivorous on an island in the Atlantic, could evolve enough to threaten endangered bird species on the remote scrap of land.
"It's a scary scenario but it's not outside the realm of possibility," he said. But he added that rabbits posed the more immediate threat.
"The rabbits are changing the whole ecosystem. The ecosystem is literally falling apart," Glanznig told AFP. "The whole island has been trashed."
Glanznig called on Canberra to take control of the island from the Tasmanian government to put an end to the plague.
The article mentions that until recently, the cat population had kept the rabbit and rodent population down. But that suddenly changed. What happened to the cats? By the way, that massive amount of money they want to spend on eradication? It's to spread poison bait.
