Warning plan to rid island of rats will cost £5m

A SCHEME to eradicate brown rats in a bid to protect an internationally important population of seabirds would cost nearly £5 million, it has emerged.

The Isle of Rum is home to around a quarter of the world’s breeding Manx Shearwater seabirds but conservat i on i s t s fear t hat t he abundance of brown rats on the island poses a risk to the birds’ success.

Scottish Natural Heritage carried out research and discovered the cost of removing the animals from the island would reach around £4.6m.

Chris Donald, SNH South Highland operations manager, said: “The report highlights some of the issues that we face in ensuring that we have a healthy and thriving biodiversity on Rum. Any scheme to remove the rats would be extremely costly. All eradication schemes, no matter where, are expensive.

“Removal is a valuable tool that we can use if necessary.

“So we need to consider our next moves in the knowledge that hundreds of rodent eradication campaigns have been undertaken on islands worldwide.”

Brown rats have already been eradicated from Canna to restore breeding habitats for Manx shearwaters and other seabirds.

However, that project cost just £600,000, compared with the £4.6m estimated cost for their removal from the 41 square miles of Rum.

Canna’s rabbit population also boomed after the project to eradicate rats, rabbit numbers reaching more than 16,000 at one stage, and then more money had to be spent to cull those animals, which were blamed for causing a landslide that blocked a main route on the island.