"No comment."
Posted on 08/08/2005 4:32:18 AM PDT by Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit
JOHANNESBURG — "Monster mice" are eating metre-high albatross chicks alive, threatening rare bird species on a remote south Atlantic island seen as the world's most important seabird colony.
Conservation groups say the avian massacre is occurring on Gough Island in the South Atlantic, a British territory about 1,600 kms (1,000 miles) southwest of Cape Town and home to more than 10 million birds.
"Gough Island hosts an astonishing community of seabirds and this catastrophe could make many extinct within decades," said Dr Geoff Hilton, a senior research biologist with Britain's Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).
"We think there are about 700,000 mice, which have somehow learnt to eat chicks alive," he said in a statement.
The island is home to 99 percent of the world's Tristan albatross and Atlantic petrel populations -- the birds most often attacked. Just 2,000 Tristan albatross pairs remain.
"The albatross chicks weigh up to 10 kg (22 lb) and ... the mice weigh just 35 grams; it is like a tabby cat attacking a hippopotamus," Hilton said.
The house mice -- believed to have made their way to Gough decades ago on sealing and whaling ships -- have evolved to about three times their normal size.
This is a common phenomenon on island habitats -- for reasons much debated among scientists -- where small animal species often grow larger while big species such as elephants display "dwarfism" and become smaller.
In the case of the mice of Gough Island, their remarkable growth seems to have been given a boost by a vast reservoir of fresh meat and protein.
AGONISING DEATH
The rapacious rodents gnaw into the bodies of the defenceless and flightless chicks, leaving a gaping wound that leads to an agonising death. Scientists say once one mouse attacks the blood seems to draw others to the feast.
While predation by oversized mice is unusual, birds on small islands are especially vulnerable to extinction from human activities such as the introduction of alien species.
This is because many birds that have evolved on isolated islands with no predators have become what biologists term "ecologically naive" -- meaning they do not recognise danger from other animals.
Flightless species -- or chicks that cannot yet fly -- are especially at risk. The predatory nature of the mice was confirmed by researchers from the RSPB and the University of Cape Town. The ground-nesting Gough bunting, a small finch found nowhere else in the world, is also at risk.
Gough Island is the most southerly of the Tristan da Cunha group. There are 22 bird species nesting on the island of which 20 are seabirds.
I always find it interesting that the biggest proponents of evolution are always the ones that complain the most bitterly as it takes its course.
/sarc
"No comment."
Yes - I noticed the "evolved" statement too. Of course, the kids of many Asian families that immigrated to the U.S. "evolved" into bigger than norm in the first generation due to abundant food and quality medical care.
Swift Grazers!
Umm, how is that not evolution?
If humans continue to receive unlimited supplies of nutrients, expecially calcium and fats, they continue to get larger. That is direct Darwinian adaptation.
It is no wonder that the first people to truly domesticate cows on a large scale are also the world's tallest. Or have you never been to the Netherlands or Scandinavia?
I'm not sure, but I think the reason is that human beings have in innate craving for God, and those that deny the one true God are often drawn to another form of worhsip. Most who deny the one true God do so because their own pride and faith in themselves keeps them from having faith in something that they cannot physically touch, see, and hear. The result is that they wind up worshipping the greatest thing tangible thing of beauty in the world, which is the earth itself. Thus they have substituted mother nature for God, and made the "environment" their religion.
I am all for montheism, but it does not seem like you are aware of the fact that humans, for most of our history, did worship the "environment". There are an awful lot of humans who still do so in an organized fashion. Only Western religions are as you describe.
Also, it seems to me that you failed to answer the question about why those who do worship God seem so careless about His creation sometimes.
Oh, I am aware of that, I think it butresses my point that in the absense of God, people go for the most tangible thing of beauty - mother nature.
Also, it seems to me that you failed to answer the question about why those who do worship God seem so careless about His creation sometimes.
That I can't help you with - I don't know.
On the other hand, one could make the case that those who cannot find a "raison d’être" in the physical world must look for it externally, by finding or creating religion.
Fair enough
Yes, that is true.
Land piranha.
Would some cats help the situation out?
...There I was with my back to the wall,
Then comes this monster mouse, he's ten feet tall,
With teeth and claws to match.
It only took one blow.
Darwin at work.
Noooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You completely deligitimize yourself at FR whenever you use French. May I suggest the German equivalent "Existenzberechtigung".
It is longer but not nearly as weenie sounding.
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