A million out of control mice that are feasting on seabirds and causing havoc on a remote island are to be exterminated. The whiskered rodents were accidentally introduced to Marion Island 200 years ago and are breeding wildly as climate change raises temperatures. Now conservationists are taking drastic action on the tiny island situated in the sub-Antarctic Indian Ocean, between Antarctica and South Africa - with no margin for error.
But now on Marion Island, 'their breeding season has been extended, and this has resulted in a massive increase in the densities of mice'. Read more:Applications open for Antarctica's penguin post officeBird flu found in king penguins for first time Rough estimates indicate there are more than a million mice on the island, an uninhabited South African territory. They are feeding on invertebrates and, more and more, on seabirds - both chicks in their nests and adults.