Rat Island: Predators in Paradise and the World's Greatest Wildlife Rescue

#762
Title: Rat Island: Predators in Paradise and the World's Greatest Wildlife Rescue
Author: William Stolzenburg
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Year: 2011
288 pages

It's hard to characterize a book about killing some animals in order to save others "enjoyable," but insofar as that's possible, this was a very enjoyable account of rat (pig, goat, fox, cat) eradication on islands whose native birds are threatened by introduced predators. Stolzenburg raises this moral dilemma but does not explore it as deeply as I'd have liked. I'm not opposed to ecosystem restoration, but would like to see both sides explored by anyone involved. Given that brodifacoum is not a humane poison, I would have liked to learn whether effective alternatives are under development.

Snakes are not featured as introduced predator-pests in this account, so see Sacks's The Island of the Colorblind to learn about brown tree snakes' predation of avifauna on Guam. A minor nitpick: The eponymous Rat Island is in the Aleutians, not at all the biome of the palm trees depicted on the fanciful cover illustration.