Bertarelli Summer2024 FINAL - Flipbook - Page 19
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RE W I L D I NG
UNDOING THE DAMAGE
Shanna Challenger, pictured
here on Redonda with
her notes, has been an
integral part of the island’s
restoration.
J O H NEL L A BR A D S H AW / EAG
Aggressive total
eradication of the
rats saved native
species from the
brink of extinction.
they’re at their most vulnerable,
willing to do anything to get food.
We covered the island in rat poison.
We had a team of about 10 people
do it—abseilers to access the cliffs,
and ground teams. I was a part of
the ground team, of course, because
I wasn’t going on the cliffs.
On the ground team, we divided
the island up and we placed bait
every 100 feet. Within two weeks
the population immediately
went down.
Did the poison affect any of the
other species on the island?
The goats were mightier than
thou—they weren’t interested in
the bait at all. The lizards are very
curious, so they were trying to
scratch at it, but it’s completely
harmless to them. It’s only lethal to
mammals—the antidote is vitamin
K, just as a fun fact. We started the
17
eradication in December 2016 and
the last sign of a rat that we ever
saw was on the 20th or so of March
2017. And to this day, knocking on
wood, we still have not seen any rat
signs since then.
What did you do with the rat bodies?
We collected most of them, and
some are still preserved in Antigua for research. We didn’t want
any going into the sea because the
coral reefs around Redonda, they’re
pretty important.
What does Redonda look like today?
Since the rat eradication, the island
has completely rebounded. We’ve
seen the lizard populations skyrocket. We have a six-fold increase
in some of the species of endemic
lizards. We are having plants that
we haven’t seen in decades. We
even had a hummingbird, and we
