Parks Canada declares war on rats in Haida Gwaii world heritage site

GWAII HAANAS, B.C. – Parks Canada staff are trying to take back two remote northern islands in the Haida Gwaii archipelago from a festering sea of rats, dropping poison pellets from a helicopter for the first time in Canada.

The aerial drop is the second phase of project Night Birds Returning, which experts hope will eradicate the rats introduced by ships that now number in the hundreds of thousands on Murchison and Faraday islands.

Laurie Wein, with Parks Canada in Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve, says one island in particular was once home to the largest colony of ancient murrelet in the world, with more than 200,000 breeding pairs.

There are now just 14,000 breeding pairs of the endangered seabirds.

Wein says the rats have no natural predators on the islands, and eat seabird eggs, chicks and even adult birds.

The aerial drop is part of a five-year, $2.5 million program to restore the natural habitat on four of the Haida Gwaii islands, and if it’s successful, the eradication program will expand to other islands in the archipelago off the northern coast of British Columbia.