This week the Anguilla National Trust (ANT) launched a programme to rid Sombrero Island of invasive mice.
The initiative is part of collaborative project, amongst the ANT, Fauna & Flora International, and the Fisheries and Marine Resources Unit-Department of Natural Resources, that aims to restore and enhance the management of the Sombrero Island Marine Park and Nature Reserve. In addition to the removal of rats from the island, the Fisheries and Marine Resource Unit has been conducting surveys of the surrounding waters.
Following an operational planning exercise, conducted in 2019 by Ms Elizabeth Bell of Wildlife International Management Ltd., the removal of mice will involve the careful dispersal of bait, donated by Syngenta through FFI and the Antigua-based Environmental Awareness Group, and intensive monitoring to ensure the success of the eradication. The initiative is being overseen by international experts, Mr. John Tayton and Mr. Toby Ross, with assistance provided by a rotating team Anguillian residents, including ANT staff. The operation is expected to take approximately two months to complete.
Individuals who may be interested in harvesting whelks or crabs from Sombrero are cautioned that no crustaceans should be removed for six months because of the baiting process. Crabs are especially known to consume the bait although they are immune to its poisons. The ANT also cautions individuals from consuming fish from the island’s immediate nearshores due to the possibility of bait being washed into the water during heavy rains. Significant precautions are being taken to limit runoff of bait into coastal waters but the risk always remains, no matter how small.
This initiative is funded by the John Ellerman Fund and the Prince of Wales Charitable Foundation. It also complements additional work being conducted by the ANT and FFI on Sombrero Island, including assessments of the Sombrero ground lizard (an endemic lizard found on Sombrero and nowhere else in the world), a pilot revegetation programme of Sombrero’s relatively barren landscape, seabird and land bird surveys, and a study of the history and the current uses of the island and its surrounding waters. This additional work is funded by the Darwin Plus Initiative and the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Sombrero Island’s history is rich. Its once-vegetated surface is now marked by large craters that were formed through decades of blasting and phosphate extraction. It is also the site of Anguilla’s only lighthouse that was manned between 1868 and 2001. An automated beacon now alerts ships to the presence of the island. Sombrero is also one of Anguilla’s Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas – and it was officially declared Anguilla’s first Ramsar Site in 2018 due its globally important population of bridled terns and regionally important populations of brown boobies, masked boobies, and brown noddies. At least three species of reptiles can be found on the island – including the endemic Sombrero ground lizard and possibly endemic dwarf gecko and tree lizard which were recently discovered. Historical reports indicate that a now extinct giant tortoise once called Sombrero home as well.
For more information about the Sombrero Island Restoration Project or the ANT’s larger collaborative project with FFI, please contact the Anguilla National Trust at 476 2170 or antadmin@anguillanet.com.
– Press Release
