The Hebridean island of Canna has been declared a rat-free zone. Such was the extent of the damage to native wildlife being caused by 10,000 of these rampant rodents that experts from New Zealand were flown in to marshal the eradication effort.
Removal of the rats should save Manx shearwaters, razorbills, fulmars and puffins as well as the Canna mouse, 158 of which were removed from Canna and placed in a safehouse to guarantee their survival.
The operation is a success story for conservation. But there are other UK islands desperately in need of exactly the same attention.
On Gough Island in the South Atlantic, mice are literally eating to extinction the populations of albatrosses, petrels and other birds. The mice are also gorging their way through endemic birds on the Pitcairn and Falkland Islands and other oversees territories still forming part of the UK.
The mice on Gough achieved worldwide notoriety three years ago and again last month when the plight of Tristan albatrosses and Gough buntings was highlighted by the RSPB. In addition to the thousands of adult birds being lost to long-line fishing fleets, albatross chicks were being eaten alive by the mice, stuck in their burrows as the mice launched their nocturnal attacks.
The ground-nesting bunting was also under siege, its eggs and chicks eaten by the mice and remaining adult birds fleeing the best nesting sites so reducing their chances of reproducing.
The attacks on these birds continue although the UK government is now funding a study of mouse eradication methods.
The birds of Gough will only be saved if ministers go further and pay for an island-wide purge.
The government’s of New Zealand and Australia have done this over much larger areas and the success story of Canna shows it can be done closer to home.
Gough Island is a world heritage site and its 10 million birds make it the most important seabird colony in the world. It deserves to be treated well. There is no better time to do that than the present.
The Canna story is here
And the horror of Gough mice here
Read more on the RSPB's campaign to save albatrosses here