Beautiful, Rat-Filled Island Seen From Space

Adele Island: From space, you can't even see the rats.
OK, it's not much of a tourism slogan, but this space-
based image of a small island off the coast of northern
Australia highlights a long-standing threat to bird life in
the Pacific. Rattus exulans, the Polynesian rat , is an
unwelcome intruder on this sandy outpost. The island is
a major breeding site for several seabirds, and R.
exulans is a notorious consumer of birds, chicks and
eggs.
Humans have been spreading rats around the Pacific for
thousands of years. According to the Invasive Species
Compendium maintained by the agricultural nonprofit
Centre for Biosciences and Agriculture, Polynesians
colonizing the Pacific brought Polynesian rats to
western islands like Samoa and Tonga as far back as
4,000 years ago. The discovery of the rats on Adele
Island dates much later, to 1891 — the first time R.
exulans was spotted in Australian territory. Today, the
rat exists on several Australian islands, but it has not
reached the mainland.
This image of Adele island was taken by an astronaut
aboard the International Space Station on June 11,
according to NASA's Earth Observatory . From 249 miles
(400 kilometers) up, the sandy base of the island can be
seen below the water's surface. The island is 2 miles
(2.9 km) long, according to the Earth Observatory, but
the sandbanks stretch out 15.2 miles (24.5 km).
The island is 65 miles (104 km) from Australia, and rises
no more than 13 feet (4 meters) above sea level. Its
grassy, flat center shows few signs of humanity. A small
solar-powered lighthouse seems to be the only man-
made structure on the island.
For birds, though, Adele island is paradise. The island is
the nesting ground for more than 1 percent of the world
population of brown boobies, lesser frigate birds and is
also home to nonbreeding red-necked stints and rrey-
tailed tattlers, according to BirdLife International. A
survey in 2004 recorded more than 24,000 birds on this
tiny spit of sand.
Efforts are underway to rid the island of its rat
population, according to the Earth Observatory. These
attempts have succeeded on other islands, including the
no-longer-appropriately-named Rat Island in Alaska.
Conservationist groups and the U.S. Department of Fish
and Wildlife poisoned the rats on that island in 2008,
and the spot was declared rat-free in 2010. Several
hundred birds died in the controversial effort, but
wildlife officials argued that the mass poisoning was
necessary to allow many thousands more birds to live
without the predation of rats.