For 150 years the mice of Gough Island have grown fat on its endangered seabird chicks. They have chomped through rare albatrosses, gorged on buntings, and evolved to an unnatural size in the process.
Now, a reckoning is coming for these supersize rodents in the shape of three helicopters, 200 tonnes of poison and a group of people prepared to spend months being battered by the winds of the south Atlantic.
Britain’s 25-year environmental plan, announced last week, specifically pledges support for recovering and restoring the populations of native species under threat.
None is more under threat than the Tristan albatross and the Gough moorhen, which live on the little-known rock that pokes above the Atlantic between Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope.