Experts deploy helicopters carrying over 500 tons of poison to eradicate dangerous island threat: 'A roll of the dice'
The damage they've done to local seabird populations has grown so extreme that officials are looking to eradicate all of the mice in one fell swoop using an innovative method — rodenticide-laced pellets.
Mice first arrived on the island two centuries ago, via sealing vessels, and they've been relatively minor pests for much of their time there.
However, Earth.com reported that a number of factors — namely, warmer temperatures that extend their breeding cycles — have created the perfect storm for an enormous mouse population. That population is, of course, hungry. The mice seek food in the form of bird eggs and even the birds themselves.
Now, grisly sights can be found around the island, as mice gnaw for hours at a time on nesting albatross. The birds, who never evolved a defense mechanism against land predators, simply sit in place until they bleed out or succumb to infection.
"These mice, for the first time last year, were found to be feeding on adult Wandering Albatrosses," said Mark Anderson, CEO of nonprofit BirdLife South Africa, per Earth.com. "Mice just climb onto them and slowly eat them until they succumb."
According to Earth.com, warmer waters have also driven fish deeper and farther south, meaning adult birds need to travel further for food and return to their nests more exhausted, unable to endure the attacks. Additionally, climate-intensified storms have been wiping away nests with extreme weather.
"Combined with the mouse attacks, these pressures make every breeding season a roll of the dice," Earth.com explained.
Marion is home to approximately 25% of the world's wandering albatross and 29 seabird species overall. However, given the severe threat posed by the mice, 19 of those species are now facing local extinction.
This poses a significant risk to the entire marine ecosystem of Marion and beyond. According to a study published in the Ecological Society of America, seabirds play an integral role in their food webs, enriching plant and coral health through their roles as both predators and prey.
How concerned are you about the plastic waste in our oceans?
Extremely
I'm pretty concerned
A little
Not much
Click your choice to see results and speak your mind.
Their guano, or dung, fertilizes the oceans with nitrogen and phosphorus, boosting plankton and fish populations. Without these stocks, the entire food web would suffer.
Generally, any time that an invasive species wipes out a native plant or animal species, it risks throwing the entire ecosystem off balance. This jeopardizes the natural functions of that environment, including air and water filtration, food production, carbon sequestration, and disease control. It can also cost billions, or even trillions, of dollars to local economies.
To address the issue, an initiative called the Mouse-Free Marion Project is looking to wipe out the island's mice all at once, leaving no chance for the species' recovery. The plan? Using helicopters to distribute 600 tons of rodenticide-laced cereal pellets.
It may sound drastic, but conservationists argue that drastic is now the only possible approach.
"We have to get rid of every last mouse," Anderson explained to Earth.com. "If there were a male and female remaining, they could breed and eventually get back to where we are now."
Currently, the program is fundraising, as it comes with a hefty $29 million price tag, and hopes to deploy its "bombs" in 2027.
Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
Scientists Finally Identify Killer Microbe Behind ‘Terrifying' Sea Star Disease
Christopher Harley, a marine biologist at the University of British Columbia, thought of himself as a reasonably dispassionate scientist. But one day in 2014 while out counting starfish, he thought he might cry. Inspecting the tide pools along one of his favorite shorelines on Vancouver Island, Dr. Marley saw something new and alarming: sea stars in several stages of death, with their arms twisted or missing. The devastation went on and on. One of his favorite parts of the ecosystem — the big, colorful, 'supremely weird' sea stars — was 'dissolving away,' he recalled recently. Since 2013, an epidemic of sea star wasting disease along the Pacific Coast of North America has caused billions of sea stars to twist and disintegrate. Sunflower sea stars, one of the world's largest starfish, lost 90 percent of its population over the last decade. Populations of sea urchins, typically preyed on by sea stars, overran and wiped out kelp forests. The cause of the disease remained elusive. But on Monday, a new study identified the killer: a sneaky bacteria known as Vibrio pectenicida. 'I have been waiting for this for a long time,' said Dr. Harley, who was not involved with the research. A team of scientists led by Alyssa-Lois Gehman, a marine ecologist at the Hakai Institute in British Columbia, conducted experiments over four years to find the culprit, which was 'hiding in plain sight,' Dr. Gehman said. The findings, published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, open many avenues of recovery for the sea star species that were previously unachievable without knowing the cause of the disease. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.


Business Wire
3 hours ago
- Business Wire
Synchron Debuts First Thought-Controlled iPad Experience Using Apple's New BCI Human Interface Device Protocol
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Synchron, a category-defining brain-computer interface (BCI) company, today released the first-ever public demonstration of an individual using an iPad controlled entirely by thought, leveraging Apple's built-in accessibility features and new Brain-Computer Interface Human Interface Device (BCI HID) protocol. The video features Mark, a participant in Synchron's COMMAND clinical study and a person living with ALS, who uses the company's implantable BCI to navigate the iPad home screen, open apps, and compose text all without using his hands, voice, or eyes. This moment follows Apple's announcement in May of a new BCI Human Interface Device (BCI HID) input protocol. With the new protocol, Apple's operating systems can leverage brain signals as a native input method for the first time. 'This is the first time the world has seen native, thought-driven control of an Apple device in action,' said Dr. Tom Oxley, CEO and Founder, Synchron. 'Mark's experience is a technical breakthrough, and a glimpse into the future of human-computer interaction, where cognitive input becomes a mainstream mode of control.' Mark's use of the iPad is enabled by Apple's built-in accessibility feature, Switch Control, and Synchron's Stentrode™ device, which detects motor intention from blood vessels within the brain. These signals are wirelessly transmitted to an external decoder, which interfaces directly with iPadOS through the new HID protocol. The system allows for closed-loop communication, where an iPad, iPhone or Apple Vision Pro shares contextual screen data with the BCI decoder to optimize real-time performance, enabling precise, intuitive control using just neural signals. 'When I lost the use of my hands, I thought I had lost my independence,' said Mark. 'Now, with my iPad, I can message my loved ones, read the news, and stay connected with the world, just by thinking. It's given me part of my life back.' Synchron was the first company to bring a permanently implantable BCI into clinical trials, and its endovascular approach avoids open brain surgery, making it uniquely positioned for real-world scalability. Today's demonstration marks a major advancement in assistive technology and a glimpse at the future of human-computer interaction. Synchron is continuing controlled rollouts of the BCI HID experience with clinical participants, with broader availability to come. This marks a critical step in making BCI technology practical, scalable, and integrated into the global consumer ecosystem, moving beyond clinical trials into everyday life. For more information and to view the video, visit our YouTube channel. About Synchron Synchron is the category-defining brain-computer interface (BCI) company pioneering implantable neurotechnology designed to restore autonomy and improve lives. Its mission is to bring the first commercially scalable BCI to millions of people with motor impairment. Synchron has completed two human clinical trials since 2019 and is preparing for a larger-scale study. The company's implantable BCI is now powered by Chiral AI™, a proprietary foundation model of cognition. With the BCI market projected to reach $400 billion (Morgan Stanley), Synchron is leading the field while prioritizing ethical development grounded in Cognitive Liberty and the protection of fundamental rights. Synchron is headquartered in New York. Learn more at and follow @synchroninc.


Medscape
3 hours ago
- Medscape
Can Treating Siblings Aid Azithromycin's Effect on Infants?
TOPLINE: Mass administration of azithromycin to both infants aged 1-11 months and children aged 12-59 months reduced infant mortality compared with treating infants alone. Although the interaction effect was not statistically significant, mortality appeared to be lower among infants living with treated older siblings. METHODOLOGY: In this secondary analysis of a cluster-randomized trial, researchers evaluated whether mass azithromycin administration reduced infant mortality and examined how that benefit varied when an older sibling in the same household also received azithromycin. They included 98,969 infants aged 1-11 months with a minimum weight of 3 kg and no known macrolide allergies who received biannual 20-mg/kg doses of oral azithromycin or placebo from November 2020 to July 2023 in Niger. Participants were divided into three arms: infants and children aged 1-59 months on azithromycin (child arm), infants aged 1-11 months on azithromycin and children aged 12-59 months on placebo (infant arm), and children aged 1-59 months on placebo (placebo arm). The primary outcome was the community-level rate of all-cause mortality among infants aged 1-11 months after 2 years of azithromycin distribution, stratified by the presence or absence of older siblings (12-59 months) in the household. TAKEAWAY: The mortality rate of infants per 1000 person-years at risk was lowest in the child arm at 18.5 deaths (95% CI, 16.7-20.4) compared with 22.3 deaths (95% CI, 20.0-24.7) in the infant arm and 23.9 deaths (95% CI, 21.6-26.2) in the placebo arm. In communities receiving azithromycin vs placebo, mortality among infants aged 1-11 months declined by 23% (95% CI, 11%-33%). Of this reduction, 23.5% (95% CI, 1.2%-72.7%) was attributable to treating infants directly, while 76.5% (95% CI, 27.3%-98.8%) resulted from also treating children aged 12-59 months. Among infants with older siblings, the incidence rate ratio comparing child and infant arms was 0.78 (95% CI, 0.65-0.93), while it was 0.91 (95% CI, 0.73-1.15) for those without siblings (P for interaction = .26). IN PRACTICE: 'The main trial results support implementation of azithromycin MDA [mass drug administration] to infants and children aged 1-59 months to achieve the greatest benefit. The analyses presented herein further support this conclusion and suggest that the spillover mechanism may include treating older siblings,' the authors wrote. SOURCE: This study was led by Ahmed M. Arzika, MPH, Centre de Recherche et d'Intervention en Santé Publique, Birni N'Gaoure, Niger. It was published online on July 10, 2025, in JAMA Network Open. LIMITATIONS: Limited statistical power restricted the detection of interaction effects in subgroup analyses. Even in high ‐ mortality settings, deaths remain too infrequent to reveal significant differences between subgroups. The large simple trial design prevented the evaluation of cause-specific mortality. Thus, analysis of specific causes of death likely associated with spillover effects of the mass administration of azithromycin could not be determined. DISCLOSURES: This study received support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health. Pfizer Inc donated the azithromycin and placebo used in the trial. A few authors reported receiving grants from the funding organization. This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.