Explore/On the Rat Patrol

H.Q.

On the rat patrol 6 8 explore S u m m e r 2 0 1 2

Their location: One of Canada’s most beautiful national parks Their mission: To terminate rodents with extreme prejudice

By

Leslie Anthony

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The storm breaks on us in the night.

In the lagoon’s protective hug, the float camp moves rhythmically, like a baby in a womb. By morning the rain is torrential, the wind a howling fury, and waves tower over trees along the island’s forested rim.

These forces combine with a rapidly ebbing tide to spin our concrete barge, which strains mightily against the ropes anchoring it to both the sea floor and the shore, as though it’s resisting the flush of a giant cosmic toilet.

After breakfast, three team members head out in their launch, Yo-Dang, to check on some traps. In the strange half-light of the kitchen command centre, the cook clears dishes while next to her, stationed at computers, one researcher enters data and another reviews photos. Yo-Dang returns within the hour, thwarted by the weather.

“Nasty out there,” says one of the crew, shaking his head. “Couldn’t get anywhere near shore.”

“It’s blowing 50-plus knots—spray, waterspouts, everything,” adds another. The largest swells this day will reach 19 metres.

The third settles into a chair and picks up a logbook. There’s not much to do except what every other living creature out here is doing: hunker down.

Later, there’s a satellite conference-call to headquarters to discuss battle plans. The scene in the cramped cooking/dining/mis7 0 explore S u m m e r 2 0 1 2

FROM LEFT: Roger Packham at the floating base camp at the Bischof Islands; team leader Laurie Wein mapping out the strategy; researcher Lexi Forbes recording rat data on Arichika Island. Previous spread (left to right): The camp at the Bischofs; bushwhacking on Arichika.

sion-control room is surreal—strategic maps, wall charts, radio and battery chargers, computers displaying images from dozens of remote cameras, bottomless coffee, and a plate of enormous cinnamon buns.

What’s even more surreal is the reason 11 of us are bobbing in the angry North Pacific: a war on rats.

Three days before, I’d arrived in Queen Charlotte City on B.C.’s remote Haida Gwaii islands. With its fishing-fleeted docks, grimy Department of Fisheries and Oceans trucks, and glut of funky guest houses garlanded in maritime kitsch, Queen Charlotte City could have been just another B.C. fishing town if not for the mop-haired kid clutching a ceremonial eagle feather in the Sea Raven restaurant. It was a reminder that the first fishermen here were, in fact, the Haida people, and that their current influence over forestry, mining, fishing, cultural and land issues is greater than at any time since Europeans began the systematic exploitation of these lush, biodiverse “Islands at the Edge of the World.” But there was one thing the Haida hadn’t gained control over— invasive species. A once-troubling

trickle of a few alien plants and animals had become a threatening flood of hundreds, raising grave uncertainties about the future. Rats, among the first invaders, had proven most destructive. But they were also one of the few that humans had experience in controlling.

When I’d checked in at Premier Creek Lodge, I’d explained to the proprietor that I was waiting for a plane to the Bischof Islands. “Oh, you must be with the Rat people!” she’d exclaimed, as if it were a third Haida clan next to the traditional pairing of Eagle and Raven.

“Not with them so much as interested in what they’re doing,” I’d offered.

Them is Parks Canada, and what they were doing—killing rats—is hardly unique in the annals of human history. But what was intriguing on Haida Gwaii was their reason for dispatching the rodents: They were attempting to restore the natural ecology.

In 2009, Parks Canada had kicked off Action on the Ground, earmarking millions of dollars for ecological restoration projects within Canada’s national parks. The projects included—among other things— controlled burns to reinvigorate native grass-

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Bischof Islands Arichika Island

Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site

lands, salmon stream rehabilitation, and invasive species management. On Haida Gwaii, the invaders being managed were of the rodent variety.

Rats—whether they be Polynesian, Norwegian or Black—are notorious hitchhikers, which is why over the millennia they’ve become a ubiquitous feature of any place that human watercraft have ever landed. Only in the last few decades has mankind finally declared war on these destructive pests in the places where it matters most: islands.

Rats likely first arrived at Haida Gwaii on 18th-century whaling ships. The animals’ prodigious reproduction rates and their ability to swim up to a kilometre had combined to spread them across the archipelago. Ultimately, feasting on both eggs and chicks, the rats would decimate seabird populations on 18 small islands in what is now the Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site. Surveys in the 1970s on tiny Arichika Island and the equally minuscule Bischof group had

only in the last few decades has mankind finally declared war on these destructive pests in the places where it matters most: islands turned up 1,600 breeding pairs of ancient murrelet and 700 pairs of Cassin’s auklet.

Today, neither bird can be found there, and the pigeon-sized murrelet is teetering on Canada’s endangered species list. Parks Canada and the Haida, joint administrators of the park, hoped that a new program— called SGin Xaana Sdiihltl’Ixa or Night Birds Returning (for the birds’ habit of holing up at night in shoreline burrows)—could turn things around.

Partnering with California-based Island Conservation, an expert in the removal of invasive species from places such as the Galapagos, Parks Canada first spent a year studying the rats’ habits on the islands via sensor-equipped cameras. Then, before rat-baiting began, some 50 deer carcasses had been laid out on points and islands surrounding the Bischofs, to attract resident ravens and eagles away from the target zone. Finally, beginning on August 1, 2011, Parks Canada’s team had placed poisoned bait into some 400 stations on Arichika and the Bischofs. The design and placement of the hexagonal, black-plastic boxes made it almost impossible for other species to reach the bait; rats, however, could enter at will, take delicious bits laced with the

anticoagulant brodifacoum back to their burrows, share it with family and friends, then quietly bleed to death. The bait would be replaced as needed for eight weeks, after which time, if no more rats were found, victory would be declared.

I’d arrived just as the project was winding down, and was anxious to see who had won.

When I wake up on my second day in Queen Charlotte City, I’m hoping to fly south to the Bischof Islands. At breakfast, however, a crusty old dude who’s been on Haida Gwaii since the last Ice Age brandishes a wooden barometer with an ashen look on his face.

“It’s the lowest I’ve ever seen,” he whispers, pointing to a needle buried well off the scale.

Outside, rain lashes and trees—big trees— bend low. I’m not flying anywhere.

So instead I decide to visit the park’s resident Haida cultural liaison, Barb Wilson.

“We’re all interested in reestablishing an intact ecosystem,” Wilson explains. “Ancient murrelets and their eggs were food when I was a little girl, and though no one eats them now, Night Birds Returning is important for cultural reasons.”

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THE ENEMY: Rats taking the bait on the Bischof Islands.

The challenge facing the anti-rat forces is clear the next day when I finally fly to the Bischofs during a calm weather window with Laurie Wein, the de facto head of the eradication program. Low tide allows us to see from the air how the intertidal zone effectively doubles the area of some of the smaller islands. Apparently rats thrive here because it’s like a buffet being restocked every 12 hours as the tide goes out.

We circle the float camp, landing on the island’s leeward side. As we taxi on the water, a smallish black bear scuttles off a cobbled beach into the bush. While supplies are offloaded onto the Yo-Dang, we hear how the bear showed up a couple of days before—on this island where bears had never been recorded—and has since trashed a few bait stations and eaten their contents.

Not enough to do the bear any harm, but as a precaution the team had set out a deer haunch containing Vitamin K, the antidote 7 2 explore S u m m e r 2 0 1 2

victory in the battle of the rats now seems all but certain; bait consumption has ceased on both arichika and the bischofs to brodifacoum, which the bear also happily scarfed. The plan now is to snare, tranquilize and move the unwelcome interloper to a plush, far-off salmon stream.

But all this is a sidenote to a more gratifying bigger picture. Victory in the Battle of the Rats now seems all but certain; bait consumption has ceased on both Arichika and the Bischofs and no carcasses can be found. (Indeed only seven turned up during the entire eight weeks—proof of the plan’s effectiveness at keeping poisoned rodents from being eaten by unintended targets.) All that remains is to secure whatever bait will be left out over winter for any rat stragglers that might have escaped the original dragnet.

After a quick lunch, the nine-person team splits into two groups. Three people—including James Hilgemann, Haida Gwaii’s lone conservation officer—remain at camp to consider the bear problem. I join Wein and the five others on a half-hour boat ride south to Arichika Island. Along the way, one of the group recites some of her rat-killing poetry.

On Arichika, the bait stations have been laid out in lines corresponding to 50x50metre grids. (An adult male rat’s territory is about 10,000 square metres and contains several females, so there was some built-in overlap—or overkill, as it were). Two team members and I head up one line, while two

And then comes the storm, the one that keeps us pinned down at the float camp. The entire day is a washout. When it clears the next morning, I accompany team member Roger Packham—of B.C.-based Coastal Conservation, another partner agency—to repair the stations that have been trashed by the bear so they’ll be ready for re-baiting.

It’s tough going, with the tangle as thick as that of any jungle. It’s also treacherous. As on Arichika, we climb steep, mossy banks and have to clamber over and under massive logs and other obstacles, while Packham anchors boxes with rebar and zip-ties.

Clouds of gulls wheel above while sea-lions and whales feed on herring and needlefish offshore. All that is missing from the great natural cycle are the seabirds that once thrived here.

Meanwhile conservation officer James Hilgemann and the two others dealing with the bear are not having much luck.

On their first outing of the day, they discover that the animal has somehow cleaned out the pot snares they’d hoped to corral it with, so they dismantle them and return to camp. It seems possible that the bear might just move off the island on its own when the berries are gone, but Wein and Packham aren’t happy about gambling on that. One of the team members loads a photo card on the computer and the Continued on page 85

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Wilson recites a litany of the damage that’s been done by alien species to medicinal plants, wild berries, young cedar forests, as well as indigenous birds, mammals and sea life. “The impact of invasive species is cumulative, and if we don’t do something soon we’ll be living way out in the Pacific on rocky outcrops with no plants. I don’t want to leave that for my grandkids.”

It’s interesting to note that Haida art— seen on totem and mortuary poles, longhouse entrances, and canoes—leans heavily on animal iconography. But nowhere will you find an image of a kuggin—a rat. So I guess it’s not surprising that the Haida are firm partners in Parks Canada’s campaign.

more each take another. Hiking over slick intertidal rock and scrambling up vertical embankments aided by fixed ropes, it’s clear that the project has not only required intensive planning and research, but has also been physically demanding. The researchers unlock each bait box, make notes, enter data on a portable device to be computeruploaded later, bag the brodifacoum in a small zip-lock, pin it inside the box, then shut and lock it again. With some 100 stations to service in dense bush and rugged terrain, Arichika suddenly doesn’t seem quite so small anymore. Indeed, by this point, Wein’s troops have walked some 1,500 kilometres and have spent more than 800 person-hours checking bait, cameras and carcasses on Arichika and the Bischofs.

on the rat patrol

Continued from page 72 group gathers to watch the bear’s actions of the past few days. Photos reveal that the animal always returns to places where it had been rewarded—like the pot snares, or deer haunches. Hilgemann decides on one last attempt before our outgoing plane arrives at 5 p.m. A few of us help him lug the pot snares to an area above the beach where I’d first seen the bear. Hilgemann attaches them to trees at thigh height, so the bear will have to reach up and into a pot, where it’s paw will be held in a soft snare until it is tranquilized. Then he loads the high-grade bait: chicken, crabmeat, gravy from last night’s prime rib, cinnamon buns, frozen blueberries, sausages fried lovingly for the occasion, and dollops of molasses. Hell, if it weren’t for the can of cat food Hilgemann adds, I would eat it myself.

An hour before the plane arrives, Hilgemann goes back to check on the snares, and makes a terrible discovery. Probably overexcited, the bear had somehow squeezed its head through a snare meant only for a paw and, panicking when the mechanism tripped, had managed to hang itself over a log. Hilgemann has never seen anything like it.

As Hilgemann, Wein and I board the plane, the team members are still shocked and saddened by the loss of the bear that they had tried so hard to protect. But at least they can feel good about what they’ve accomplished in the last eight weeks. When they’d arrived on the Bischofs and Arichika, the islands had been teeming with rats, but now the rodents appear to have been eliminated with almost military precision.

The good guys have won the battle. And by reversing a past environmental mistake, they’ve made it possible for one of the country’s rarest birds to return to its remote home.

Postscript: Subsequent checks on Arichika Island and the Bischofs have revealed no signs of rats. Parks Canada now intends to eliminate rats from nearby Farady and Murchison islands, which will create a buffer from the surrounding rat-free territory.

Leslie Anthony wrote about Quebec’s Anticosti Island in our May 2011 issue.

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