‘World-first’ conservation scheme successfully eradicates feral ferrets from a Northern Irish island

Rathlin Island, off the north coast of Co Antrim, is home to Northern Ireland's biggest seabird colony, with more than 250,000 birds including puffins, razorbills, guillemots and Manx shearwaters breeding and nesting there each year and providing a major nature tourism draw.

It is also home to a population of corncrakes – a ground-nesting bird which is extinct in the rest of Northern Ireland.

But the birds have been under severe pressure from a population of feral ferrets, which have been on the island since being introduced in the 1980s and which prey on eggs, chicks and even adult birds.

The ‘LIFE Raft’ partnership, led by the RSPB and working closely with the community on the island, has used trapping, camera and thermal drone surveillance and a detection dog called ‘Woody’ to eradicate the animals, a domesticated relative of polecats.

While island eradication programmes have previously targeted the likes of invasive rats on South Georgia and invasive mice on Gough Island, in the Atlantic, to protect native birdlife, the team said it is the first time in the world a scheme has successfully removed ferrets from an inhabited island.

The LIFE Raft scheme is also working to remove brown rats – another threat to ground-nesting birds – from Rathlin Island.

LIFE Raft programme manager Erin McKeown said the “large-scale, ambitious partnership”, which has operated with significant involvement and support from the island's community of around 150 people, had been years in the making.

Before the eradication there were an estimated 100 ferrets on Rathlin Island, with the potential to do serious damage to bird populations – with evidence of one animal getting into the puffin colony and killing up to 27 birds in a two-day period.

“They put a really high pressure on this place the seabirds have to breed and raise their young,” Ms McKeown said.

They also affected the local community, with ferrets getting into chicken coops on the island.

The project to eradicate them officially started in 2021, and has involved 30 staff and 60 volunteers, working mostly in the autumn and winter to avoid disturbing breeding seabirds and facing cold, wet, icy and stormy conditions.

Five years on, it has been declared a success, with efforts now focused on biosecurity – keeping ferrets and any other non-natural predators off Rathlin.

Already positive signs include Manx shearwaters breeding on the island for the first time in 20 years.

“From a wild bird perspective, this is one of the most robust, critical lifelines we can give our seabirds on our islands across the UK and the island of Ireland,” Ms McKeown told the Press Association.

She said seabirds were declining across the globe, and on Rathlin Island there had been a 74% decrease in the puffin population since 1999.

“If we don't act now in this way, we could lose some of these island populations.

“This is one of the most urgent things we can do, and we know the benefits will be far-reaching for the community too,” she added.