RATS

Black Rats have been successfully exterminated on Anacapa Island

Rats are present on three of the eight California Channel Islands: San Miguel, Santa Catalina and San Clemente islands. They are currently not found on Santa Barbara, Anacapa, San Nicolas, Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa islands. Black rats (Rattus rattus) may have been introduced by a shipwreck on San Miguel Island. On Anacapa Island where rats were once prolific, the National Park Service began a rat-poisoning program in 2001, dropping poison pellets by helicopter. The controversial program is thought to have been successful in eliminating rats from Anacapa Island. Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus) are also found on Santa Catalina Island.

Rats: Anacapa Island

• Black Rat (Rattus rattus)

Black rats (Rattus rattus) were introduced to all three Anacapa islets, but the time of introduction cannot be determined. They may have arrived as early as the 1853 wreck of the Winfield Scott. Early specimens were obtained by Richard M. Bond in 1940 and are at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, UC Berkeley. A decade after a $3,000,000 extermination effort, Anacapa Island was declared rat-free by Channel Islands National Park in 2013. Since that time, the Western Gull population has greatly increased. Rats are no longer preying on their eggs.

ISLAND	COLLECTOR	INSTITUTION	DATE	NUMBER	SPECIMEN	DEPARTMENT
Anacapa Island	Richard Bond	MVZ	May 17, 1940	MVZ 91055	Rattus rattus	Mammals
Anacapa Island	Richard Bond	MVZ	May 17, 1940	MVZ-91056	Rattus rattus	Mammals
Anacapa Island	Richard Bond	MVZ	May 17, 1940	MVZ-91057	Rattus rattus	Mammals
~ trip ~
Anacapa Island	J. C. Von Bloeker	LACM	August 16, 1940	LACM-007411	Rattus rattus	Mammals
Anacapa Island	J. C. Von Bloeker	LACM	August 16, 1940	LACM-007412	Rattus rattus	Mammals
Anacapa Island	J. C. Von Bloeker	LACM	August 17, 1940	LACM-007413	Rattus rattus	Mammals
Anacapa Island	J. C. Von Bloeker	LACM	August 17, 1940	LACM-007414	Rattus rattus	Mammals
Anacapa Island	J. C. Von Bloeker	LACM	August 18, 1940	LACM-007415	Rattus rattus	Mammals
Anacapa Island	J. C. Von Bloeker	LACM	August 18, 1940	LACM-007702	Rattus rattus	Mammals
Anacapa Island	J. C. Von Bloeker	LACM	August 18, 1940	LACM-007703	Rattus rattus	Mammals
Anacapa Island	J. C. Von Bloeker	LACM	August 18, 1940	LACM-007422	Rattus rattus	Mammals
Anacapa Island	J. C. Von Bloeker	LACM	August 21, 1940	LACM-007416	Rattus rattus	Mammals
Anacapa Island	J. C. Von Bloeker	LACM	August 21, 1940	LACM-007417	Rattus rattus	Mammals
Anacapa Island	J. C. Von Bloeker	LACM	August 21, 1940	LACM-007418	Rattus rattus	Mammals
Anacapa Island	J. C. Von Bloeker	LACM	August 21, 1940	LACM-007419	Rattus rattus	Mammals
Anacapa Island	J. C. Von Bloeker	LACM	August 22, 1940	LACM-007420	Rattus rattus	Mammals
Anacapa Island	J. C. Von Bloeker	LACM	August 22, 1940	LACM-007421	Rattus rattus	Mammals
Anacapa Island	J. C. Von Bloeker	LACM	August 24, 1940	LACM-007423	Rattus rattus	Mammals
Anacapa Island	J. C. Von Bloeker	LACM	August 29, 1940	LACM-007424	Rattus rattus	Mammals

June 27, 1907 [SBMP]: “Anacapa may be stocked with game birds. Captain Bay Webster, lessee of Anacapa Island, will stock that little rock off in the Pacific with coast quail, if the authorities will give him permission. He has made application to the State game commissioners. If permission is granted, which is expected, Captain Webster will immediately proceed to trap a number of pairs of the little birds and take them to his preserve, twenty miles off shore. Anacapa would be a prime place for the raising of quail. There are no wild animals whatever on the island, such as foxes, wild cats, skunks, weasels or the like, nor are there any snakes or other living things, outside of rats, and it is not thought these latter would bother the birds, preferring to live in the fish leavings and about the houses of the island fishermen. The rats were left on the island by the wreck of the old steamer Winfield Scott in 1849 [1853]. At one time there were hordes of them, but they are getting scarce now. The quails put on the island would have a free run and would, it is thought, increase rapidly.”

August 26, 2000 [VCS editorial]: “A Death Chain. The National Park Service plans to exterminate the rats on Anacapa Island. The method of choice is 10,000 pounds of poison pellets dropped from the sky via helicopter. The rats will die, any bird of prey that eats rats will die, as will any predator that eats eagles, hawks, ravens and crows. A death chain. The National Park service has poisoned rabbits, and shot rabbits on Santa Barbara Island in the past. The National Park service has shot animals with high-powered semi-automatic rifles from helicopters at Santa Rosa Island. All of these defenseless animals were left to rot, not given to the needy or harvested. I vote to save the four-legged rats on Anacapa Island and remove the two-legged rats doing business as the National Park Service. James McClelland, Oxnard”

November 22, 2000 [VCS]: “Rat-poisoning program to be tested on Anacapa. Channel Islands National Park is expected to rain poison on a small portion of Anacapa Island today, a test of a larger, as-yet-unapproved plan to kill more than 2,000 black rats on the island. Less than a pound of brodifacoum, the same active ingredient found in an over-the-counter poison manufactured by D-Con, will be laced in 50 pounds of kibble resembling dry dog food, then dropped from a helicopter on Middle Anacapa, said Kate Faulkner, chief of natural resources management at the park. Of the island's 700 acres, the test will affect only about 10 acres, a portion of the island that is not open to public visits. “The purpose of the test is to make sure that everything works the way that we expect it to work, when we actually do the eradication,” Faulkner said. “It's an opportunity to work with the helicopter company... to make sure that we are going to be able to place the bait directly where we need to place it.” The poison dropped today is expected to be the only poison dropped on Anacapa this year. Future drops are planned for the fall of 2001 and again in 2002. Drops will be done only in the fall, Faulkner said, when the island has a low population of birds such as sea gulls, which might suffer harm or die if they eat the poisoned carcasses of rats. The Environmental protection Agency has yet to grant its permission for the massive poisoning program, although Faulkner said, she doesn't expect any snags in obtaining approval. “We're still working with the EPA to get a permit for the larger-scale operation,” she said. Today's “small scale research test” has been approved by the EPA, she said. The poisoning is primarily an effort to protect birds. Two bird species — the Xantus murrelett and the ashy storm petrel — have suffered declining populations in California. Both bird species nest on Anacapa, but suffer great harm because the rats eat their eggs, Faulkner said. Even as adults, the birds are preyed upon by rats, which can overtake them in nests. The original poisoning plan, which was released in July by the National Park Service, was to drop up to 9,700 pounds of poison-laced bait pellets on the islets that make up Anacapa. The hope was that the drops would kill off about 2,000 black rats, whose ancestors were probably stranded on Anacapa years ago in shipwrecks. But one concern of the EPA and the Park Service has been whether the poison might also kill hawks, owls and other birds that eat the rats. The Pesticide Management Education Program at Cornell University says extensive research on brodifacoum's effects on predatory animals, such as barn owls, shows that it “can be toxic.” However, when used as recommended, the poison “has shown that such predators are not normally at risk,” according to PMEP. In an effort to track the poison's effects, several rats have been fitted with radio-tracking collars. “We cite that most of the rats will die underground,” Faulkner said. “That's why we have rats with the radio collars... to determine whether all the rats do indeed die and whether they die underground or not.” The eradication plan is being paid for by a grant from the American Trader Trustee Council, the result of a court settlement after a Feb. 7, 1990 oil spill off the shore of Huntington Beach. In that spill, approximately 400,000 gallons of Alaskan North Slope crude oil was spilled from the steam tanker American Trader, causing harm to seabirds and other animals. The restoration fund provides money to improve the condition of resources harmed by that spill. The largest portion of the settlement went to address bird-related natural resource injuries — $2,484,567. The rat extermination is part of the Park Service's sometimes controversial efforts to restore native plants and animals to all of the Channel Islands. With the exception of a few feral sheep that were recently spotted on Santa Cruz Island, and many feral pigs on the same island, rats are the only non-native wild animals in the national park. In addition to Anacapa, San Miguel Island has an infestation of black rats, which breed so quickly that every three weeks they produce a new generation.”

December 2, 2001 [LAT]: “I was shocked in these supposedly environmentally conscious times the national parks department is planning to airdrop poison onto Anacapa Island to exterminate a population of black rats. The anticoagulant poison causes lengthy pain and suffering to all its victims. The chemical is not approved by the EPA for wilderness use, but somehow an exemption was received for Anacapa Island. The problem is the environmental domino effect. The poison will travel through the entire food chain, killing more than the targeted rats.”

Rats: San Miguel Island

• Black Rat (Rattus rattus)

September 16-October 5, 1927 [Chester Lamb field notes]: “I am told there are no snakes or rats on the island [San Miguel Island].”

Rats: Santa Catalina Island

• Black Rat (Rattus rattus)
• Norway Rat (Rattus norvegicus)