South Georgia Brown Rat Eradication Underway Again – do not think that a few traps will be enough!    Phase 2 of the South Georgia Heritage Trust Habitat Restoration Project, to eradicate rodents from the Island, is underway. The main team arrived on the chartered support vessel RRS ERNEST SHACKLTON (of the British Antarctic Survey) in February 2013.     Some of the first things offloaded from the ship onto KEP jetty at South Georgia were the three (3) BOLKOW-105 helicopters.        These had made the journey from the Falklands in a rather cramped ship’s hold. As each helicopter was craned off, the rotors were quickly fitted and the helicopter flown off, to make room for the next aircraft and for containers of bait, fuel and stores to be offloaded.      Many more containers remained on board and over the following days, when weather allowed, caches of bait, fuel and stores were off loaded by boat and helicopter to a number of Forward Operating Bases around the northern end of the Island.      Poor weather delayed the operation, but luckily the support ship was available for charter for a few more days and the last of the equipment and people were set ashore at Husvik before the vessel sailed.    The field team numbers some 25 who arrived on the support ship, but a few remaining workers will arrive later to make full complement and included three New Zealanders and one British helicopter pilots.

Phase 1, the trial phase of the project, was already the largest attempted rat eradication globally and was undertaken two years ago in the Grytviken area.     From monitoring in the area since, it appears to have been completely successful in removing rats from the three baited peninsulas.      Phase 2 of the operation is to treat all the remaining rat infested areas, an area of 80,000 hectares, (say 310 square  miles) several times larger than the Phase 1 area, and will be done over two field seasons.