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Hundreds of years ago, before Europeans
arrived in Antigua, the island had plenty of Antiguan racers.
The thick forest that covered Antigua was teeming with lizards,
the snakes' favourite snack. Free from predators and human
interference, they had very little to fear. The arrival of
Christopher Columbus changed all that. For
more on the history of Antigua & Barbuda, see Treasure
Island.
In the late 15th century, European
settlers began to colonise Antigua. Using slaves brought from
Africa, they cut down the forests to make room for huge plantations
of sugar cane. The slave ships also brought rats. Feasting
on the sugar cane (and, among other things, the eggs of the
Antiguan racer) the rat population rocketed. By the end of
the 19th century, the rat plague was out of control.
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Sugar cane plus rats equals bad
news for the racer |
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Bringing the mongoose to
Antigua was a big mistake |
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The plantation owners had a cunning
plan (or so they thought). They introduced Asian mongooses
to kill the rats. There was just one problem. Black rats are
mainly nocturnal, active at night. Mongooses prefer to hunt
during the day. So the two animals hardly ever met. This was
good news for the rats. It was disastrous news for the defenceless
birds, frogs and, in particular, the Antiguan racer, which
the mongooses killed and ate instead. Within sixty years,
the snake had vanished completely from Antigua and most of
its offshore islands, the victim of rats, mongooses and human
ignorance.
For more on rats and mongooses, see
Villains.
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| Luckily, a few Antiguan
racers survived, pinned into a corner on a tiny mongoose-free island
not much bigger than a superstore car park (See The
Last Resort). Forgotten by the outside world, the last remaining
population clung on, its future hanging by a single thread. |
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Most people thought that the snake was extinct,
but a local naturalist from the Island Resources Foundation knew
better. In the early 1990s, he met a zoologist from Fauna &
Flora International (see Heroes).
Together, they visited Great Bird Island and found the snake. By
the time the Antiguan racer was rediscovered, it was on the brink
of extinction.
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| Could anything
save it from the same fate as the dodo and the dinosaurs? To find
out, see Mission Impossible? |
©Copyright 2001
The Wildscreen Trust, PO Box 366, Bristol, United Kingdom BS99 2HD
Very Important Serpent | Treasure
Island | Mission Impossible
| Heroes | Villains
| Teachers' Centre |
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