> one single racoon released in a small Spanish Island by idiots almost wiped the entire colony of an endangered marine bird in two years
That's crazy. Do you have a link to that?
That's crazy. Do you have a link to that?
Checked. I stand corrected. It was a few months, not two years and the seabird was not an endangered species globally (but can be locally).
It happened in the National park of Timanfaya almost twenty years ago. At the end of June-2003, a trail of depredated corpses of Scopoli's shearwaters started to appear.
The area is dry and the invisible predator left no traces and almost no faeces to examine. The National Park staff suspected a ferret as main candidate. Dogs, cats or even badgers were also in the list, some camera traps were set and eventually show a racoon.
Until caught at the end of the summer, the final "bodycount" was 100 shearwaters killed (plus the orphaned chicks unable to survive without the parents). This just by one single racoon in a single summer. The animal was tame, not afraid of people and was clearly a released pet. If it hadn't happened in a national park no one would have bothered to hunt it.
I only found a link in Spanish, you can use google translate if you are curious about the details.
https://www.abc.es/espana/canarias/abci-capturado-mapache-ca...
https://galapagosconservation.org.uk/invasive-black-rats-in-...
https://www.dw.com/en/raccoons-wreak-havoc-with-agriculture-...
edit: link
The Mediterranean Islands had pygmy elephants, endemic goats, bunny like rodents with short ears and forests with many trees that were extinct long time ago. All fauna now is similar to the continent, and seabirds know since long time ago that there are small carnivores roaming; and that some places are safe to nest and other not.
Canary islands have their own biodiversity area and remained much more isolated with no native wild carnivore predators.