THE GLOBAL WAR ON ISLAND RATS.

The article discusses the global efforts to eradicate invasive rats from islands in order to protect native wildlife. Over the past half-century, there have been 820 attempts to eradicate rats from 666 islands, with a success rate of 88%. Rats pose a significant threat to island-dwelling species, which account for 75% of all known bird, mammal, amphibian, and reptile extinctions. The most common targets of eradication programs are black, brown, and Pacific rats. While eradication efforts have been successful on small, uninhabited islands, there are also ongoing efforts to eradicate rats from larger islands, including New Zealand's plan to make the entire country free of invasive predators by 2050. The article highlights the potential benefits of these eradication campaigns, as they could significantly improve the survival prospects of threatened island vertebrates. [Extracted from the article]