Cats were deliberately put on the island to control the rats, but they immediately ran wild and went after the much tastier seabirds. Dogs were introduced to control the cats, but they too preferred another diet. The result was a total anihilation of almost all seabird species. Only the wideawakes managed to survive in numbers. They were the only seabird species to completely leave the island for a period of two months a year, causing a period of starvation among the cats, thus controlling their numbers.
Ascension has no indigenous land birds.
Those birds presently flying around, have been imported. In previous centuries there has been a tiny flightless rail, closely related to the Inaccessible flightless rail, only know from a traveller's description of 1656, and skeletons found this century. Ascension's beaches are visited by sea turtles during the greater part of the year, to lay their eggs. The Cape Verde Islands lie some 500 km off the West African coast, almost due west of Cap Vert in Senegal. There are 10 inhabited large islands, and many uninhabited small ones, which still host significant seabird populations.