That was four years ago and the rats were exterminated because they had threatened the survival of Canna’s important colony of seabirds, which includes shags, kittiwakes, fulmars, puffins and guillemots, and the unique Canna mouse, which is 25 per cent bigger than its mainland counterpart.
Yet their disappearance has led to a new menace. With the rats gone and an acute shortage of other predators, rabbits have enjoyed a population explosion and are now nibbling the five mile-long island to destruction, decimating the gardens of residents and jeopardising historic monuments as they burrow through the land.
Indeed, in an effort to do its bit, the island’s only restaurant has responded to the crisis by offering dishes of rabbit and cranberry with pistachio, and rabbit pie in a rosemary and thyme cream sauce.
Canna, with just 20 residents, was officially declared “rat free” in 2008 by Michael Russell, the then Environment Minister, after a team of specialists from New Zealand cleared the island of 10,000 brown rats whose ancestors had first found their way to the island from a passing ship more than a century ago.
The blitz against Rattus norvegicus began in autumn 2005 when poisoned bait was laid at 4,200 locations around the island. The short, sharp slaughter was so effective that the body of the last rat was found and removed the following February. Two years then had to pass without any further sightings before it could earn its rat-free status. Without the rodents, however, and thanks to several mild winters, rabbits are now booming.
“There are thousands of them now, it has reached near plague proportions,” said Winnie Mackinnon, 47, who has lived almost all of her life on Canna.
“I have never known it so bad. It is because the rats have gone and they used to keep the rabbit numbers down. The rabbits don’t have a natural predator anymore.”
Although the last thing residents want is a return of the rats, the booming rabbit population has become a problem, Mrs Mackinnon said. It was the main issue at the last meeting of the island’s community association.
She claimed that their burrows are destroying important archaeological sites. “An Iron Age mound is a particularly target for them. It is a scheduled monument but it is being burrowed into by the rabbits and eroded. Stone Age huts and dykes from the Clearances are having their foundations destroyed,” she said.
They have also been munching on islanders’ gardens — an important resource used to grow the vegetables that cannot easily be had from the mainland.
Mrs Mackinnon added: “I like rabbit and people are eating a lot of it here at the moment, but I don’t know how this problem will be solved — without a complete eradication of the species — and there is no money to do that.
“The only things that are happy are the sea eagles. They have been having a real feast — but [are] obviously nowhere near keeping up with the rabbit population.”
Amanda McFadden and Aart Lastdrager, who run the The Gillebrighde, the island’s only café, have taken advantage of the increasing population, and are using about a dozen rabbits a week. “They are a big problem here and at least those that find their way into our dishes are not dying in vain,” said Ms McFadden, 38. “Rabbit is very popular with our customers, but since the rats have gone they seem to have bred prolifically. We are making our small, but tasty, contribution to keeping them down.”
A spokeswoman for the National Trust for Scotland, which owns Canna, acknowledged there was an issue.
“We recognise there is a rabbit problem on Canna as is the case on other Hebridean islands. But we don’t believe it has got worse since the eradication of the rats. However we will continue to monitor the situation,” she said.
Charlene Sweeny©: first published in the Times: 27-4-10
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