Better than a Mousetrap: Save the Forest

Banded Iguana ©Leoni Valentine

The Pacific paradise of Fiji is home to dolphins and whales, parrots and iguanas, fruit bats and seabirds. Travel brochures rarely mention its less spectacular but more numerous wild residents: invasive mongooses and rats. These non-native critters are decimating endangered species throughout the Pacific Islands.

A recent study by WCS and other groups, published in the journal Conservation Biology, found that these island-wreckers do, however, have their limits: The forest is a veritable no-scurry zone. Instead, rats and mongooses prefer to forage along forest edges. As a result, Fiji’s remaining jungles are havens for pink-billed parrotfinches, banded iguanas, and Fijian land snails. The researchers conclude that preserving these forest blocks should be more cost-efficient than trapping and removing the invasive species.

The scientists discovered that the pests rarely visited bait stations they placed more than three miles from the forest edge. The researchers are not sure why these invasive species seem to shy away from deep forests. They theorize that agricultural areas or secondary forests provide better habitat in which to reproduce.

Unfortunately, even low levels of penetration by rat and mongooses into forest areas can cause the decline of native species. Logging roads and rivers can provide access for invasive species to areas where endangered species occur.

"Remote forest areas that function as refuges for threatened island species are increasingly rare and should receive the highest priority for conservation on the larger islands of the Pacific," said WCS researcher David Olson, lead author of the study. He added that similar forests exist in Vanuatu, New Caledonia, the Solomon Islands, Samoa, Hawaii, and tropical Caribbean islands.

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