Rathlin Island off the north of Northern Ireland is now free from feral ferrets that were harming its native seabirds. Conservationists say this is the first time these nonnative animals, which were domesticated from polecats some 2,000 years ago, have been completely eradicated from any island. Ferrets (Mustela furo) were introduced to Rathlin in the 1980s to control another invasive species, rabbits, which were considered agricultural pests. However, instead of targeting rabbits, the ferrets multiplied and feasted on seabirds, ground birds, and their eggs and chicks, said Erin McKeown, program manager of the Life Raft ferret-eradication project led by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Northern Ireland (RSPB NI). Rathlin Island is home to more than 250,000 seabirds like puffins, razorbills, guillemots and Manx shearwaters.  “On Rathlin, there has been over 70% of decline in puffin population,” McKeown told Mongabay by phone. “There are loads of different reasons for this decline, but one of the big ones is overpredation by ferrets. For example, a feral ferret got into our puffin colony in 2017 and in a two-day period had killed over 26 mature puffin birds. These are a species that will lay one egg a year.” In 2021, a five-year, 4.5-million-pound ($6.1 million) project, involving RSPB NI, government agencies, other charities and the local community, was launched to eradicate ferrets on Rathlin. There were an estimated 93 ferrets on the island at the time; all have now been removed by trappers, McKeown said. The project team also relied…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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