Before it does so, it must jump through a series of legal hoops. How? By poisoning them.īut FWS cannot just go out and spread poison on a critically important seabird nesting island. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) wants to eradicate all of the mice on Midway.
They are also disease vectors.Īs a result, the U.S. Mice are also detrimental to the island’s habitat for other reasons, including their consumption of plants and invertebrates, often competing with native species. Having evolved without predators, the albatrosses are effectively defenseless against the mice and the photos show the consequences. In 2015, mice suddenly started attacking albatrosses sitting on nests and attacks have been steadily increasing since. Midway, which was once a military facility, has long had mice and it once had rats, though they were eradicated in 1996. Invasive species, particularly rodents, have long been a problem on the Hawaiian archipelago.
These islands and their surrounding waters are protected as part of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. Many of these islands are part of the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge and one of the most important areas is Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge. These remote islands, some more than 1,000 miles from Honolulu, are home to huge globally-significant colonies of Laysan and Black-footed Albatross, among many others. The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are home to some of the largest assemblages of breeding seabirds in the United States.
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