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  • Tags / Keywords capra hircus
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Ten years after feral goat eradication: the active restoration of plant communities on Guadalupe Island, Mexico
Island and Ocean Ecosystems, BRB
Available Online

Aguirre-Muñoz, A.

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Cárdenas-Tapia, A.

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García-Carreón, J.S.

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Hernández-Montoya, J.C.

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Luna-Mendoza, L.

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Luvianos-Colín, S.

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Méndez-Sánchez, F.

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Puebla-Hernández, O.

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Torres-Aguilar, M.

2019
As the ?rst step towards the ecological restoration of its islands, Mexico has completed 60 eradications of invasive mammals thanks to a strong partnership between Grupo de Ecología y Conservación de Islas, A.C. (GECI), the federal government, local ?shing communities, academia, and private donors. The removal of invasive mammals has led to the dramatic recovery of the islands’ ecosystems. On Guadalupe Island, after completing the goat eradication in 2007, the native vegetation started to recover. Plants considered extinct or extirpated have been rediscovered, and plant species new to the island have been recorded. However, in order to achieve the island’s full recovery, the active restoration of degraded soils and vegetation are needed. To date, GECI, in collaboration with the National Forestry Commission (CONAFOR) and the National Commission for Natural Protected Areas (CONANP), is implementing a 700 ha project to accelerate the restoration of the native vegetation communities. The project involves reforestation, erosion control, and ? re prevention actions on different plant communities: forests and sage scrub. An on-site nursery has been established, seedlings—mostly from endemic trees—are being grown, and on-site reforestation planting has started. Up to June 2018, we have planted almost 40,000 trees, and will produce 160,000 seedlings during this year. Mechanical methods to control and prevent erosion have been used as we have installed more than 2,400 m of contour barriers, 57 m3 of dams, and rehabilitated ?rebreaks. The actions will continue: the long-term goal being the comprehensive restoration of the vegetation communities devastated by feral goats. The Guadalupe Island experience will be useful to inform the restoration of other Mexican islands.
Archipelago-wide island restoration in the Galapagos Islands: Reducing costs of invaisve mammal eradication programs and reinvasion risk
BRB
Available Online

Campbell, Karl J.

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Carrion, Victor

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Cruz, Felipe

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Donian, C. Josh

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Lavoie, Christian

2011
Invasive alien mammals are the major driver of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation on islands. Over the past three decades, invasive mammal eradication from islands has become one of society's most powerful tools for preventing extinction of insular endemics and restoring insular ecosystems. As practitioners tackle larger islands for restoration, three factors will heavily influence success and outcomes: the degree of local support, the ability to mitigate for non-target impacts, and the ability to eradicate non-native species more cost-effectively. Investments in removing invasive species, however, must be weighed against the risk of reintroduction. One way to reduce reintroduction risks is to eradicate the target invasive species from an entire archipelago, and thus eliminate readily available sources. We illustrate the costs and benefits of this approach with the efforts to remove invasive goats from the Galápagos Islands. Project Isabela, the world's largest island restoration effort to date, removed > 140,000 goats from > 500,000 ha for a cost of US$10.5 million. Leveraging the capacity built during Project Isabela, and given that goat reintroductions have been common over the past decade, we implemented an archipelago-wide goat eradication strategy. Feral goats remain on three islands in the archipelago, and removal efforts are underway. Efforts on the Galápagos Islands demonstrate that for some species, island size is no longer the limiting factor with respect to eradication. Rather, bureaucratic processes, financing, political will, and stakeholder approval appear to be the new challenges. Eradication efforts have delivered a suite of biodiversity benefits that are in the process of revealing themselves. The costs of rectifying intentional reintroductions are high in terms of financial and human resources. Reducing the archipelago-wide goat density to low levels is a technical approach to reducing reintroduction risk in the short-term, and is being complemented with a longer-term social approach focused on education and governance.
Report on results of rat control trials in the Tokelau Islands from 30 July to 20 September 1970 and recommendations for a comprehensive scheme of rat control
BRB
Available Online

Kazimierz Wodzicki

1970
The visit to the Tokelau Islands described below is the third carried out in a study of ecology, rat control and related problems. The first visit in 1966/67 (Wodzicki 1968 A) was devoted primarily to the study of the ecology of the Polynesian rat (Rattus exulans) and the environment, including the animals and the vegetation, of Nukunonu atoll. The main objects of the second expedition in April-June 1968 (Wodzicki 1968 B) were the initiation of a long-term investigation of rat damage on all three atolls and the training of two men from each island as rat control operatives. The present visit was planned with the following tow main objectives in mind: 1. the study of the relationship of rat damage to various coconut varieties growing in the Tokelau Islands; and 2. the conduct of rat control trials with the view of preparing for the Administrator, Tokelau Islands (Mr. Richard B. Taylor) recommendations for a rat control scheme suitable for the Tokelau Islands. The preliminary analysis of data collected during the fifteen months long investigation of rat damage in 1968/69 on the three atolls suggested that palms belonging to some varieties may be more prone to rat damage then others (Wodzicki 1970). It seemed important that we learn more about the character of palms growing on the three atolls. With regard to rat control, trials with various kinds of poisons have been carried out since our first visit to the Tokelaus in 1966/67 (Wodzicki 1968 A). However, during our first two visits knowledge of rat ecology was not sufficiently advanced to allow for more sophisticated tests. Since the author's 1968 visit, the important work on rat control in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands by F.J. Smith (Smith 1969) has become available. This information and our knowledge of rat ecology, gradually acquired since the beginning of the Tokelau Islands rat project, now makes possible a programme that could become the basis of a practical rat control scheme for the three islands. As most of the previous work had been carried out on Nukunonu atoll only, it was felt that half of the time during the visit should be spent on Fakaofo and th remainder on Atafu. Following a brief descrption of these trials is the writer's recommendation of a rat control scheme submitted to the Administrator, Tokelau Islands. Finally, some other observations on plants, animals and related aspects are friefly reported and collections made for the Botany Division, D.S.I.R. and the Dominion Museum are briefly mentioned.
Invasive mammal eradication on islands results in substantial conservation gains
BRB
Available Online

Jones, Holly P.

2016
More than US$21 billion is spent annually on biodiversity conservation. Despite their importance for preventing or slowing extinctions and preserving biodiversity, conservation interventions are rarely assessed systematically for their global impact. Islands house a disproportionately higher amount of biodiversity compared with mainlands, much of which is highly threatened with extinction. Indeed, island species make up nearly two-thirds of recent extinctions. Islands therefore are critical targets of conservation. We used an extensive literature and database review paired with expert interviews to estimate the global benefits of an increasingly used conservation action to stem biodiversity loss: eradication of invasive mammals on islands. We found 236 native terrestrial insular faunal species (596 populations) that benefitted through positive demographic and/or distributional responses from 251 eradications of invasive mammals on 181 islands. Seven native species (eight populations) were negatively impacted by invasive mammal eradication. Four threatened species had their International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List extinction-risk categories reduced as a direct result of invasive mammal eradication, and no species moved to a higher extinction-risk category. We predict that 107 highly threatened birds, mammals, and reptiles on the IUCN Red List—6% of all these highly threatened species—likely have benefitted from invasive mammal eradications on islands. Because monitoring of eradication outcomes is sporadic and limited, the impacts of global eradications are likely greater than we report here. Our results highlight the importance of invasive mammal eradication on islands for protecting the world’s most imperiled fauna.