Success for aerial control of rats on Italian offshore island

Nature and Environment Management Operators Ltd, Firenze, Italy undertake analysis, planning and management of natural resources in the Mediterranean region.

When they were involved in an EU founded project (LIFE + Monticristo2010) to carry out a rat eradication program on the 1080Ha Monticristo Island in the Tuscan Archipelago, their group purchased a TracMap to provide the GPS guidance system necessary for the job.
TracMap was used for bait distribution by helicopter for control of the black rat (Rattus rattus).
While it is too early to know the final result, the application program went very well according to a recent email from NEMO's Paolo Sposimo.

"The operation went well, Tracmap did not disappoint our expectations and we had a homogeneous distribution. The auto-boom control system was perfect."

NEMO Company was established in 1993 and has a number of very experienced Biologists, with Masters of Natural Science and Agronomy qualifications on their staff.
The.company's main range of activities concerns analyses, planning and management of natural resources.

Since 1998 to date, NEMO Ltd. has collaborated on all the black rat (Rattus rattus) eradications carried out in Italy, to the first house mouse (Mus musculus) eradications and to the control of an island feral cat population.

Molara, Giannutri and Zannone are the three largest Mediterranean islands where eradications have been carried out. Eradications were entirely successful but Molara has been afterwards recolonized by rats from mainland.
Molara is moreover the first European island where the baits have been distributed almost entirely by a helicopter (aerial bait distribution), according to the protocols developed in New Zealand and adopted in North America, Australia and many oceanic islands. This methodology has been replicated on Sa Dragonera Island (Balearic, Spain), and was adopted on Montecristo. Montecristo is by far the largest Mediterranean island where this operation has been carried out, simultaneously with an invasive alien plant (Ailanthus altissima) eradication.

To find out more about the company and projects, click here and here