More Mad Ratter News. Kiwi Style!

This just in via the Wonderland Rabbit Hole and the Otago Daily Times:

  "Six Kiwis, including Wanaka helicopter pilot Peter Garden, are battling the elements in the Falkland Islands and South Georgia as they kill rats in an aerial poisoning operation. As Mark Price writes, they are also keeping a wary eye on the simmering tensions between Argentina and Britain over the disputed islands.

Six New Zealanders are experiencing the ongoing tensions between Britain and Argentina in the South Atlantic but have been instructed not to talk about that.

The six, members of `Team Rat', are on the island of South Georgia, a British overseas territory 2700km from the Argentine coast and one of the islands where there was fighting 31 years ago in the Falklands war.

They have been part of a 26-strong South Georgia Heritage Trust team attempting to eradicate rats from the island.

The project's chief pilot and flight operations manager Peter Garden, of Wanaka, responded by email this week to Otago Daily Times questions about the end of this year's rat poisoning.

Asked what he was able to say about the presence of the Argentine and British navies in the vicinity of South Georgia, Mr Garden wrote: ''At the moment the issue with the Argentinian presence close to the island is still rather tense and we are required not to send emails with details of ship movements.''

That leaves uncertainty over when the rat eradication team's support vessel, the British Antarctic Survey ship RRS Ernest Shackleton, will collect the 11 members who have not left.

The other New Zealand members of the team are helicopter pilots Tony Michelle, of Hanmer Springs, and Dave McLaughlin, of Ohakune, chief engineer Mark Paulin, of Auckland but resident in Britain, Keith Springer, of Christchurch, and Nick Torr, of Te Anau.

The Falklands war, which claimed 649 Argentine lives and 255 British lives, began with the invasion of South Georgia by Argentina in 1982.

In the following 10 weeks, British forces drove the Argentinians from South Georgia and the Falkland Islands.

However, earlier this year, Argentina's president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner urged Britain to end colonialism and was reported to be reacting to a British decision to name a large chunk of the Antarctic ''Queen Elizabeth Land''.

As well as the dispute over the islands, Britain and Argentina both lay claim to what is now Queen Elizabeth Land.

The Falkland Islands has a resident population of about 3000 but South Georgia normally has just a British scientific presence of about 30.

Mr Gardon said base camp for the rat eradication team, or Team Rat as it calls itself, was an old whaling station, but elsewhere on the island they lived in tent camps, coping with anything from gales, blizzards and -15degC temperatures to ''the odd relatively calm'' day with ''balmy'' temperatures of 10degC.

''We expected to experience cold conditions and all of the team members have been chosen for their ability to work in this type of weather.''

During one night last week while staying at the British Antarctic Survey base at King Edward Point, Team Rat members were roused at 5am by a tsunami warning after an earthquake off the South Sandwich Islands.

''This required us to climb up the hill behind the base in snow and -8degC, but fortunately not much wind, and wait for two hours till the all clear was given. No sign of any sea surge, though.''

Mr Garden said their biggest flying problem had been the wind - ''sudden unpredicted winds of 60 knots (110kmh) are not uncommon and moderate to severe turbulence is common''.

However, using three twin-engine Bolkow BO 105 helicopters, Team Rat has treated 580sq km - 65% of the rat habitat - as planned.

Team Rat hopes to complete the eradication in 2015.

The rats are Rattus Norvegicus (Norway or brown rats) that probably arrived with sealing parties in the early 19th century.

Mr Garden's next destination is Gough Island, off Cape Town, on the other side of the South Atlantic, where he will carry out feasibility work on a proposed mouse eradication."

Link: Otago Daily Times