Lord Howe Island is overrun by rats — but people are divided about how to deal with them

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The unwelcome visitors arrived on a shipwreck in 1918. Overrun, Lord Howe Islanders are trying to save their slice of paradise. But the controversial solution is pitting locals against each other.

Rats. Killing native birds and wildlife, ravaging crops and gardens, undermining the tourist trade.

There are now some 1,000 rodents for each of tiny Lord Howe Island's 350 residents.

Arrayed against them: Helicopters, GPS tracking teams, high-tech apps and scores of scientists leading one of Australia's most complex pest eradication programs.

But the all-out assault on rats has split the island, amid fears the baiting campaign could kill the very endangered species it's trying to protect.

"Yewwwww weeeee! Yewwwww weeeee!"

Clive Wilson is calling his beloved providence petrels down from a Lord Howe mountain.

It sounds like a "cooee" from a mate, and soon the petrels are circling above the life-long Lord Howe Islander, noisily calling back.

One of Clive's greatest fears is that after the aerial bait drops, there won't be any of the venerable sea birds left for him to summon.

"It's like using a sledgehammer to crack a peanut," he says.

"You can quote me on that."

The threat to birds is real — ahead of the aerial baiting, staff from Sydney's Taronga Zoo have captured flocks of two other endangered species to make sure they survive.

Clive fears his grey and white petrels face extinction on the island, which is home to one of only two breeding colonies in the world.

It's estimated there are now up to 150,000 rats and 210,000 mice on Lord Howe Island.

They are being baited using cereal pellets laced with poison, which have been put in 22,000 lockable traps.

When the weather allows, helicopters will be used to drop the bait in inaccessible areas.

The Rodent Eradication Program (REP), has been deemed safe for people on the island.

However, residents are being told not to consume local eggs, milk, or the livers of fish, until it's confirmed they don't contain traces of poison.

A supply of the rat poison antidote, Vitamin K1, has also been brought to the island.

Two bird species have been deemed especially at risk of being poisoned — the Lord Howe Island woodhen and the currawong.

The former is an endangered bird, which was nursed back from the brink of extinction on the island in the 1980s. Only a few hundred exist.

It's thought mice first appeared on Lord Howe Island around 1850, and the rats came later, after escaping from a sinking ship off the coast in 1918.

Their population has exploded in the subsequent century.

They've played a role in the extinction of several species of plants and animals there.

Despite the numbers, the rodents aren't easy to find — they're nocturnal and mostly live underground.

The damage they do is more noticeable — in backyard vegetable patches, to the seeds of native trees, and eggs of native birds.

But most conspicuous is the wedge they've driven between islanders.

Gai Wilson was born on Lord Howe, and wants the baiting to stop.

"Friendships, families [have been split], it's really sad to be honest."

"I can't ever remember seeing the community as divided as what it is right now. It's horrible."

Residents have been trying to kill the rodents for a long time, mostly using household traps.

But the idea of getting rid of them for good dates back almost two decades.

In 2015, residents were polled and 52 per cent voted in favour of a complete eradication.

Peter Adams, the chief executive of the Lord Howe Island Board (LHIB), admits people are split.

"It's been very difficult and obviously with any project like this, people have different views, and some people have fears, and that's very understandable," he says.

"Yes, there have been tensions."

Those tensions reached a flashpoint earlier this year, when there was a fight between two Islanders over the REP on Good Friday.

That people on the normally sleepy isle resorted to physical violence is perhaps the most overt display of how divided this place is.

Local tour guide Jack Shick was charged with common assault — the matter will be in court next month.

While he can't discuss his upcoming case, Jack says he's a big supporter of the REP, after rats ate the chicks of a Lord Howe Golden whistler — a striking gold, black and white bird — in his backyard.

"It really upset me," he says.

"There's always something here that someone will have a whinge about ... there's been some people that have been strongly opposed, it's divisive but we're still talking to each other, so that's good.

"But I think some people may have to eat their words."

Gai was involved in efforts to save the Lord Howe Island woodhen in the 1980s — at the time there were only 30 birds remaining.

She doesn't want the baiting program to mean the species is threatened again.

"It's just not worth the risk," she says.

Hotelier Lisa Makiiti is a sixth-generation islander and knows the impact of rodents more than most.

"We see evidence constantly. Vegetable gardens being eaten, my passionfruit vine being attacked," she says.

"It's personal for us.

"Growing up here, every weekend we'd go for a walk in the bush with Dad, and he would point out every bird's nest, every tree.

"And slowly that's being eroded away, to the extent now that we go for a walk in the bush and it's quiet.

"There are species you rarely see, they've just been decimated."

Around Lord Howe Island there's an army of REP workers wearing blue hats.

They carry buckets of bait to put in the traps, which can be found every 10 metres in the settlement area.

Some traps are covered by what looks like wooden tents, to make it almost impossible for animals, like livestock, to eat the bait.

Implementing the REP is an exact science — the workers carry huge GPS trackers on their backs, and log their movements on mobile phones.

Andrew Walsh is the baiting project manager and works for the LHIB.

"Generally, [the rodents] die underground in their nests," he says.

"Occasionally some of the rodents may die in a visible space, and our team will go around and collect those rodents and dispose of them appropriately.

"We've had some human health risk assessments done for the project, the most recent of those was overseen by the NSW Office of the Chief Scientist.

"They concluded that the project was safe for residents and visitors."

The woodhens and currawongs being kept safe by Taronga Zoo staff will be released when the REP is over.

But Andrew concedes the ones that remain in the wild could be collateral damage.

"The captive management program is in itself an insurance policy," he says.

Some islanders against the REP challenged it in Australia's Administrative Appeals Tribunal earlier this year.

In response, the authority tweaked some of the permit's conditions, including requiring all tourists during 2019 to be told about the bait's potential health risks, especially to young children.

In his reasons, Deputy President Brian Rayment QC, noted that: "There is no doubt that one of the tragic losses which will be likely as a result of the eradication project is a loss of some of the birdlife on the island."

The baiting is expected to take several months, and when it's finished, the island will be monitored for two years to confirm all rodents are dead.

It's hoped native wildlife can then begin to bounce back, and the community can start to heal.

With the program underway, most on the island are hoping tensions will ease and their tiny community can turn a corner.

Gai Wilson sums it up best: "I just hope that it succeeds, and once it's over, it's over."

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Topics: animals, human-interest, animal-attacks, animal-welfare, local-government, government-and-politics, community-and-society, lord-howe-island-2898

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