The island of Saint Paul / my trip to the French Southern Lands (13/16)

<BODY BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT = "#ABCBBE"> <BR> Saint Paul is only at few hours of sea of Amsterdam : no base is installed on this tiny island of 8 km2, which is in fact made up of an emerged volcano, whose crater is invaded by the sea.<BR> Here, the principal plague are the rats! Introduced at the end of the 18th century by the first navigators, they colonized all the island at the point to reach a population estimated from 50 to 100 000 individuals !!<BR> Principal victim : the birds, whose nest is on the ground, and whose population was decimated. Only the rock of the "Skittle" (below) was never infested.<BR>The reason of our stop at St Paul is related to a project of ecological rehabilitation: the objective is to study if it is possible to exterminate these rats so that the multiple species of birds, still present (but in low number) on the "Skittle", can reinstate their original habitat on the main island.<BR> For the anecdote, this project is financed by... the European Community!!! </BODY>