Homo medlesomosis

Thursday, 10th September 1.00 PM.

The anchor is up and a gentle breeze blows us south for the final push to Tenerife. We should arrive sometime tomorrow. Soon it will be time for my departure from this grand endeavour, leaving behind various semi-autonomous components of VRPO (Dutch) Television, and the crew of the Stad Amsterdam who will spend two days preparing for the second leg, starting on Sunday, which takes them 5 days further south to Cape Verde.

Last night we sheltered close by two small barren volcanic islands - the Selvagens. Just one guard lives there, in a tiny hut, to look after the lighthouse. A team of scientists is also resident, usually for a month at a time, to monitor and manage the wildlife.

Islands like these have suffered miserably at the hands of myriad sailors over the last few centuries. Being strategically positioned for both European and Muslim explorers (either heading west across the Atlantic or south down the coast of Africa) has led to the introduction of a number of invasive species, either as a source of fresh meat to restock a passing ship’s larder (rabbits) or inadvertently from within the ships stores (mice).The combined effect of these creatures has been all but to destroy these islands’ ecosystem. They especially enjoy feasting off the chicks and eggs of the islands' native birds. At least they did - until a few years ago, when the Portuguese government declared these places a national park.

Hanneke Meijer is a biologist with Naturalis, the Natural History Museum of Holland. She set out from Madeira four days ago, accompanied by another scientist, a paleontologist called Burt, and, of course, a VPRO film crew. Their mission was to try to find the fossilized eggs of an extinct species of island bird.

The seas were mighty rough when they set off –a stiff Force 8. Nine people traveling for 19 hours on a 30ft sailing boat (equipped to sleep four) sounded like a pretty harsh start to me. Hanneka arrived exhausted. She never got to sleep. Instead, she spent the whole journey throwing up, triggering within me the deepest sympathy. It must have been ghastly.

But the trip was a great success. Incredibly, the team found a 15 million year-old fossilised bird egg of some (as yet to be identified) species. It is now safely stowed aboard the Stad Amsterdam, carefully packaged up one of Burt’s old T-shirts inside a plastic box. It represents the first real nature treasure recovered so far on the voyage (apart from Wim’s plankton, of course…).

Meanwhile, the fortunes of the island other species continue to gyrate wildly, thanks to the ongoing intervention of Homo meddlesomosis. Two years ago these habitats were finally declared mice and rabbit free after a hefty war was waged using rat poison in a bid to protect the islands’ populations of native birds. Imagine, I thought, having the task of trying to rid an island of rodents…

But other problems have emerged as a consequence. Hanneka tells me that the islands are now infested with so many native lizards - now gaily enjoying a rodent free future - that it is almost impossible to put a bag on the ground before at least 10 little beasts leap inside to explore its contents. Leave it unattended for five minutes and the number jumps well into the hundreds.
And, guess what? Now the mice are gone, these lizards have themselves developed a taste for eating the chicks of the indigenous birds.... Agh!

It made me wonder whether trying to restore an island ecosystem to its pre-human evolutionary equilibrium is really worth the effort. Darwin’s theory suggests to me that a simple combination of time and isolation is the best remedy for restoring to health a damaged ecosystem. I believe that nature will eventually rebalance (heal) itself, if simply left alone.

Tell me: why do we people always feel the need to intervene, even if it’s to ‘restore’ a place to a state it once was before we intervened in the first place?