Endangered seabirds have returned to their small island home in French Polynesia for the first time in over 100 years thanks to the efforts of conservationists, Mongabay reported.
Invasive rats that preyed on the ground-nesting seabirds' eggs and chicks drove Kamaka Island's once-thriving population of Polynesian storm petrels to local extinction.
Previous attempts to remove the rats failed because of the island's rugged terrain, but in a serendipitous twist, technological innovation and conservation came together to make this most recent restoration effort a success.
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Island Conservation partnered with Envico Technologies to conduct over 600 drone flights over the island, precisely targeting the invasive rodents with rat poison without harming native species.
"The use of drones on Kamaka was our most ambitious to date, demonstrating the potential for this technology to be a tractable and cost-effective solution for island restoration compared to conventional methods," David Will, head of innovation at Island Conservation, said in a statement.
The team then utilized a social attraction strategy to lure storm petrels back to the island, installing solar-power speakers to play recorded bird calls, building artificial burrows, and replanting native plants to create an ideal nesting habitat.
Within just three weeks — the birds had returned.
The success story is one of many inspiring examples in recent years. California's gray wolf population doubled for the first time in 100 years thanks to state and federal protections. In the Caribbean, the removal of invasive species such as rats and raccoons has allowed more than a dozen species to bounce back, including the critically endangered white cay iguana.
The benefits of these conservation efforts extend far beyond saving one species. A returning species restores biodiversity to its local habitat, something critical for a healthy ecosystem, and in turn, supports the pollinators vital to our food supply.
"This remarkable progress brings hope for the future," Tehotu Reasin, who is a landowner of Kamaka Island, explained in a statement. "These seabirds bring critical nutrients from the ocean to the island, which cascades down into the surrounding marine environment benefiting fish and corals. The entire ecosystem can once again thrive."
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