A WILDLIFE expert from a Scottish university has said he feel "extremely proud" as a long-awaited mission to eradicate rats from a South Atlantic island neared an end.
Professor Tony Martin of Dundee University has been overseeing the "Team Rat" project, the largest of its kind ever undertaken, since 2007.
He hopes the island, which is an important seabird sanctuary, will soon be rodent-free for the first time in 200 years after the final pellet of rat-poison bait was laid this week, bringing to an end phase three of the eradication programme.
Professor Martin said: "After so many years of working towards this objective, strange to say I'm a little unsettled by the realisation that we're about to achieve our long-awaited goal, but extremely proud."
The entire £7.5 million project has been organised by a small Scottish charity, the South Georgia Heritage Trust, based in Dundee, relying entirely on voluntary donations.
Planning began in 2007, and the fieldwork was undertaken in three phases in 2011, 2013 and 2015 by an international team of the world's leading experts in eradication work, in often weather hostile conditions.
During the third and final phase of fieldwork 95 tonnes of bait were laid by the Trust's helicopters, using GPS tracking systems over a 226 square miles. to keep an accurate record of bait coverage, as well as some hand-baiting, over an area of 364 square kilometres.
The three month field operation involved almost 350 flying hours, requiring 260 bait pods to be laid and 350 drums of fuel to keep the helicopters in the skies above South Georgia.
Another two years of work will be required before the British Overseas Territory, can be declared rodent-free.
Organisers will have to raise hundreds of thousands more to fund the ongoing monitoring efforts.
Prof Martin added: "For Team Rat, our thoughts now turn to home, and we have already started the process of clearing the operating bases to leave no trace of our presence there. After inspecting Phase 2 sites for rodent signs and packing many tonnes of equipment, the team and the [South Georgia Heritage Trust] helicopters will be uplifted in mid-April by the RRS Ernest Shackleton.
"For the first time in two centuries the prospect of a much brighter, rodent-free future for the wildlife of South Georgia is within sight".
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