Predatory mice threaten seabirds.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

I'm not making this up!

Killer mice ambush endangered seabirds' chicks

The “supersized” mice’s voracious appetite may spell the end for some species of bird.


Thousands of overgrown house mice are feasting on endangered seabird chicks as they sit helplessly in their nests. The feeding frenzy could spell extinction for populations of birds who breed on the rodent-infested Gough Island in the South Atlantic, conservationists are warning.

The mice are devouring more than one million petrel, albatross and shearwater chicks on the island every year, say researchers from the UK’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

Before the mice arrived - during the last century through shipwrecks and whaling boats - Gough Island was naturally free of mammalian predators, making it an ideal place for species like albatrosses to nest, says Geoff Hilton, senior RSPB research biologist. Albatross chicks are virtually immobile, and frequently left undefended by their parents, who depart for lengthy ocean feeding excursions. Chicks spend eight months nest-bound, while their parents bring them food.

The Gough Island mice are three times bigger than their UK relatives, weighing in at around 35 grams. Albatross chicks can weigh up to 10 kilograms and stand 1 metre tall – 250 times larger than their rodent attackers.

But the mice are undaunted by their hefty prey and gnaw into live chicks, creating gaping wounds that slowly kill the birds after a few days. The RSPB team thinks that there are around 700,000 mice on the island that have learned to dine on chicks in this gruesome fashion. “It is like a tabby cat attacking a hippopotamus,” says Hilton.

Catastrophe looms

And their voracious appetites may prove disastrous for the island, home to 20 species of seabird. Part of the Tristan da Cunha group, Gough Island is uninhabited by humans and home to 99% of the world’s Tristan albatross and Atlantic petrel populations – the most frequently attacked birds. Just 2000 breeding pairs of Tristan Albatross birds remain. “Gough Island hosts an astonishing community of seabirds and this catastrophe could make many extinct within decades,” says Hilton.

Ross Wanless, from the University of Cape Town’s Percy FitzPatrick Institute, says the mice behaviour on Gough Island is rare and worrying. “There are mice on other South Atlantic islands but Gough is the only site where this is known to be happening. Once one mouse has attacked a chick, the blood seems to attract others.” Film footage has recorded 10 to 15 mice feasting on a single chick.

The researchers report that 700,000 Atlantic petrel chicks - about 60% of the island’s Atlantic petrel population - died before fledging in 2000 and 2001, probably due to mouse predation. The mice are also devouring about 1000 Tristan albatross chicks a year.

“For a carnivorous mouse population on one of the wettest and windiest places on Earth, it is an easy meal of almost unimaginable quality. The result is carnage,” says RSPB biologist Richard Cuthbert.

[Pcm979]

Well, you misadvertised it. I had an image of mice on hanggliders or something.

[Winston Blake]

The Gough Island mice are three times bigger than their UK relatives, weighing in at around 35 grams. Albatross chicks can weigh up to 10 kilograms and stand 1 metre tall – 250 times larger than their rodent attackers.

But the mice are undaunted by their hefty prey and gnaw into live chicks, creating gaping wounds that slowly kill the birds after a few days.

That's nasty, like those Compsognathus [sp?] critters in Jurassic Park 2 that swarm and eat little bitty bits off you until you die. The idea of roving blood-muzzled crazy-eyed carnivorous mice is giving me 'Beast of Caerbannog' mental imagery.

"Look, sir, there's one of the vicious new predators"
"What, behind the mouse?"
".... it is the mouse."

[spikenigma]

this was on channel 4 (uk) news yesterday

quite gruesome to watch them at it as well (they had a clip)...

[Quadlok]

Obviously, they need to introduce cats to eat the carnivorous mice.


...


What?

[John of the Dead]

Quadlok wrote:

Obviously, they need to introduce cats to eat the carnivorous mice.

Ah, then you get into the visvous cycle: you introduce the carnivorous cat to eat the carnivorous mice. Then you have to introduce a carnivorous dog to eat the cat. Then you have to introduce a carnivorous lion to eat the dog. Then you have to introduce a carnivorous elephant to trample the lion. Then you have to introduce a carnivorous mouse to scare off the elephant, and you're right back where you started.

So goes the Looney Tunes logic.

[Winston Blake]

Quadlok wrote:

Obviously, they need to introduce cats to eat the carnivorous mice.

Ah, then you get into the visvous cycle: you introduce the carnivorous cat to eat the carnivorous mice. Then you have to introduce a carnivorous dog to eat the cat. Then you have to introduce a carnivorous lion to eat the dog. Then you have to introduce a carnivorous elephant to trample the lion. Then you have to introduce a carnivorous mouse to scare off the elephant, and you're right back where you started.

So goes the Looney Tunes logic.

The carnivorous cats are no problem. We simply release wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. Then we introduce killer apes that love eating snakes. Then when winter comes, the apes freeze to death.

So goes Principal Skinner's logic.

I would think of something witty to say involving old women and swallowing, but i can't stand the mental imagery.

[wolveraptor]

That's right, attack a fucking baby like the wuss you are, mouse. Man, I was thinking of packs of mice attacking adult birds. How kick ass would that be? A bird struggling to leave the ground, making several false starts, crash landing into the rocky turf due to a pack of 6 mice hanging onto its feathers.