Living up close to some of the world"s rarest animals and birds

Published 7 May 2009 09:00 0 Comments

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In the second part of their report from the South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha, Brad Robson, Anja Rosler and their daughter, Reika, discover some of the fascinating wildlife found here and outline some of the specialist work they are engaged in during their one-year there. They arrived on the remote island in December and after enjoying a 'southern summer' they now head into winter.

'So what about our work? In January, the Conservation Department became a government department in its own right with Brad"s colleague, Trevor Glass as Head of Department. An Assistant Conservation Officer and clerk were also appointed. This rapid growth immediately allowed operations to be expanded. Invaluable in our conservation efforts is the assistance of the Darwin Team, a group of Tristanians who underwent conservation training as part of a Darwin Initiative project between 2004 and 2006. Our work has also been helped to an immeasurable degree by the provision of a seven metre rib by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, which allows access to all of the northern islands of the archipelago: Tristan, Inaccessible and Nightingale Island.

We have deployed 354 rodent bait stations around the settlement on Tristan and at the potato patches in order to minimise the effects of rats in people"s homes and on vegetable crops and poultry. A hut has been built on neighbouring Nightingale Island to house equipment aimed at detecting the arrival of rodents and to deal with such an event should it happen. Brad has been involved in several trips to monitor the breeding success of the most numerous albatross to occur here, the Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatross, locally known as 'Mollies'.

In February, Brad spent five days on the aptly named Inaccessible Island in search of the few remaining pairs of Tristan Albatross in the northern islands. This species formerly also occurred on Tristan itself; its stronghold is Gough Island 350km to the southeast. Inaccessible Island is a truly stunning place to be, with several million pairs of breeding seabirds and four species found no-where else on earth.

The most enigmatic of those is the Inaccessible Rail, the world"s smallest flightless bird. Related to our Water Rail, it is a little larger than a mouse, with long, soft feathers more reminiscent of fur. They are very common on the island with an estimated 5,000 pairs occurring everywhere from the steepest cliffs to the beach edge and the mountain summit. They are quite shy but defend their territories vigorously against neighbours.

Earlier in January, the three of us visited Nightingale Island for something of a family holiday. The island has small wooden huts used by Tristanians for holidays and whilst working on the island, but in general it is uninhabited. We were alone; well, alone if you ignore our four million neighbours, the seabirds under our hut and in every conceivable inch of available space on the four square kilometre island.

The noise at night defies any attempts of description! As with many aspects of life here, travel is often something of an adventure, and this was no different when we hitched a ride to Nightingale on one of the lobster fishing vessels operating around the islands. Ascending and descending a rope ladder over the side of the ship, with a four-year old in tow and in considerable sea swell, required strong nerves.

We took all we needed along and supplemented our diet with the abundant fish, which we caught from the shore. When the clouds cleared on the third day, Tristan appeared on the horizon 30 miles away. We were on a tiny islet in the vast South Atlantic, on the horizon of the world"s most remote settlement - now we knew what it meant to be small.

Anja has collected thousands of seeds from various native plants for the Millennium Seed Bank at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. She is also involved with ongoing efforts to reduce the impact of the many non-native, invasive plant and animal species introduced to these remote isles. Together, we have compiled a conservation newsletter to measure the Tristanians" attitudes to some of these invasive species, especially the recently introduced Valencia Slug and to map its distribution. The plan is to provide each of the 108 households with its own copy, and we are therefore eagerly awaiting the arrival of the next ship, which should deliver a new, state-of-the-art printer…

This article appeared in Impartial Reporter 07 May 09

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