Rat island : predators in paradise and the worlds greatest wildlife rescue Rat Island rises from the icy gray waters of the Bering Sea a mass of volcanic rock covered with tundra midway between Alaska and Siberia. Once a remote sanctuary for enormous flocks of seabirds the island gained a new name when shipwrecked rats colonized savaging the nesting birds by the thousands. Now on this and hundreds of other remote islands around the world a massive and massively controversial wildlife rescue mission is under way.Islands making up just 3 percent of Earths landmass harbor more than half of its endangered species. These fragile ecosystems home to unique species that evolved in peaceful isolation have been catastrophically disrupted by mainland predators rats cats goats and pigs ferried by humans to islands around the globe. To save these endangered islanders academic ecologists have teamed up with professional hunters and semiretired poachers in a radical act of conservation now bent on annihilating the invaders. Sharpshooters are sniping at goat herds from helicopters. Biological SWAT teams are blanketing mountainous isles with rat poison. Rat Island reveals a little known and much debated side of todays conservation movement founded on a cruel to be kind philosophy.Touring exotic locales with a ragtag group of environmental fighters William Stolzenburg delivers both perilous adventure and intimate portraits of human beast hero and villain. And amid manifold threats to life on Earth he reveals a new reason to hope Rat Island rises from the icy gray waters of the Bering Sea a mass of volcanic rock covered with tundra midway between Alaska and Siberia. Once a remote sanctuary for enormous flocks of seabirds the island gained a new name when shipwrecked rats colonized savaging the nesting birds by the thousands. Now on this and hundreds of other remote islands around the world a massive and massively controversial wildlife rescue mission is under way. Islands making up just 3 percent of Earths landmass harbor more than half of its endangered species. These fragile ecosystems home to unique species that evolved in peaceful isolation have been catastrophically disrupted by mainland predators rats cats goats and pigs ferried by humans to islands around the globe. To save these endangered islanders academic ecologists have teamed up with professional hunters and semiretired poachers in a radical act of conservation now bent on annihilating the invaders. Sharpshooters are sniping at goat herds from helicopters. Biological SWAT teams are blanketing mountainous isles with rat poison. Rat Island reveals a little known and much debated side of todays conservation movement founded on a cruel to be kind philosophy. Touring exotic locales with a ragtag group of environmental fighters William Stolzenburg delivers both perilous adventure and intimate portraits of human beast hero and villain. And amid manifold threats to life on Earth he reveals a new reason to hope