COMMENT OPPORTUNITY: Rat eradication in the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge

[Laura Bies]

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service intends to prepare an environmental impact statement for a proposed project to eradicate nonnative rats from four uninhabited islands (Amchitka, Attu, Great Sitkin, and Kiska Islands) located in the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge and is soliciting for comments on the issues to be considered in that EIS.

Many islands within the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge have had accidental and intentional introductions of nonendemic mammals (e.g., Arctic and red fox, ground squirrel, Norway rat, house mouse, caribou, reindeer, cattle, and Arctic and European hare). On many islands with established populations of introduced rats, the diversity and numbers of breeding birds are conspicuously low. The Refuge’s islands are important breeding habitat for seabirds. In 2008, the Refuge and partner organizations successfully eradicated Norway rats from Hawadax Island (formally called Rat Island).

The USFWS is looking for comments from the public and local, State, Tribal, and Federal agencies regardingthe scope of the analysis, potential alternatives, and identification of relevant information, studies, and analyses.

The agency has published the following list of preliminary alternatives:

• Alternative 1: The no-action alternative, in which nonnative rats remain on islands.
• Alternative 2: This alternative proposes rat eradication primarily using bait pellets containing the rodenticide brodifacoum.
• Alternative 3: This alternative proposes rat eradication primarily using bait pellets containing the rodenticide diphacinone.
• Alternative 4: This alternative analyzes rat eradication using emerging genetic biocontrol technology to limit propagation or survival.
• Alternative 5: This alternative analyzes rat eradication primarily using bait pellets containing the rodenticide norbormide.

Comments are due to the USFWS by Nov. 7. More information about the project is available at the project website.

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