---
title: "Saving Tristan Albatrosses from mice in 2019: the UK Government has committed £1.75 million to support the Gough Island Restoration Programme"
---

# Saving Tristan Albatrosses from mice in 2019: the UK Government has committed £1.75 million to support the Gough Island Restoration Programme

The UK’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds ([RSPB](http://www.rspb.org.uk)) is working towards the eradication of “killer” House Mice *Mus musculus* on Gough Island, where they have been reducing breeding success of near-endemic and [Critically Endangered](http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/speciesfactsheet.php?id=30013) Tristan Albatrosses *Diomedea dabbenena* to unsustainable levels for well over a decade – as regularly reported in *ACAP Latest News* ([click here](http://www.acap.aq/en/search14?q=Gough+Mus)).

 ![](https://www.acap.aq/images/stories/acap/Birds/Albatrosses/T/Tristan/Wounded chick Karen Bourgeois_ Sylvain Dromzee shrunk.jpg)

 A Tristan Albatross chick after overnight attacks by mice, the bird died soon afterwards; photograph by Sylvain Dromzee

 Along with the need to draw up complex plans for a helicopter-borne poison bait drop over the whole island, set to take place in the austral winter of 2019, is the requirement to raise the necessary funds for the operation ([click here](http://www.acap.aq/en/news/latest-news/2505-the-gough-island-restoration-programme-makes-a-fund-raising-call-to-eradicate-killer-mice-in-2019?highlight=WyJnb3VnaCIsImdvdWdoJ3MiLCInZ291Z2gnIiwicmVzdG9yYXRpb24iLCJwcm9ncmFtbWUiLCJwcm9ncmFtbWUncyIsInJlc3RvcmF0aW9uIHByb2dyYW1tZSJd)).

 An eradication exercise in the mid-Atlantic is clearly going to be expensive, possibly costing as much as six million pounds, so the recent announcement by the RSPB that the UK Government has committed £1.75 million to support the [Gough Island Restoration Programme](http://www.rspb.org.uk/our-work/conservation/conservation-projects/details.aspx?id=419512) is a welcome start ([click here](https://www.rspb.org.uk/community/ourwork/b/martinharper/archive/2017/01/25/glowing-woodlice.aspx)).

 The UK had previously announced its intention to support the eradication of invasive mice on Gough Island at the 13th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity ([CoP13](https://www.cbd.int/cop/)) held in Cancun, Mexico last month ([click here](http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/ourwork/b/martinharper/archive/2016/12/18/10-highlights-from-the-13th-conference-of-the-parties-to-the-convention-on-biological-diversity.aspx)).

 [Click here](http://www.rspb.org.uk/Images/gough_island_restoration_programme_tcm9-419521.pdf) for an illustrated information brochure about the eradication programme and view the [mouse attack video](https://vimeo.com/167423504#at=0).  A [donations page](https://www.rspb.org.uk/applications/Donations/single/index.aspx?dt=MDNGOU0024) has been set up by the RSPB to receive contributions.

 Thanks to Clare Stringer, Head of International Species Recovery Unit, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, UK.

 *John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 31 January 2017*