In other exciting news this week, after a thorough re-survey of Redonda the conservation organizations have determined that Redonda is officially rat and goat free. This is terrific news because even a small pocket of rats that were missed in last year’s eradication could quickly explode into a huge population, negating all of the conservation … More Redonda is officially rat free!
The island of Redonda, owned by Antigua and Barbuda, is a beautiful, forbidding rock in the Lesser Antillean Islands. It is home to three endemic species of lizards: an anole (Anolis nubilus), a ground lizard (Pholidoscelis atrata), and and as of yet unnamed Sphaerodactylus dwarf gecko. Until 2017, the island was also overrun with rats and goats, introduced … More Conservation on Redonda
Alright, yesterday’s pictures were a bit gross, I apologize. Today’s will be a little nicer. Here’s just a quick photo dump and some captions of a few more scenes around the island, plus lizards! Here’s the helicopter coming in for a landing. Notice all the beautiful grass! Here’s a male on a perch checking out … More Some prettier pictures from Redonda
I’ve been looking back at pictures from Redonda to get some inspiration for writing up a short “one year later” natural history manuscript and I’ve come across some pictures and video I haven’t shared yet. I’m going to queue up a few for fun. First, is the answer to a riddle the lizards had given … More Crudo a la Redonda
Revisiting Redonda one year after the goats were helicoptered off and the vermin e-rat-icated was every bit as exciting and gratifying as I could have hoped last year. I’d guessed we might see some grasses fighting their way up through the dust and rocks, maybe a few extra lizards happy to not have to watch … More Revisiting Redonda
The trip to Redonda was a huge success and even more importantly, the restoration project is going tremendously well! Last year, Redonda was dusty and dry, overrun with goats and rats that were mowing through the vegetation and hurting the islands’ unique mix of plants and animals, including three endemic lizards. This year, the island … More We’re back from Redonda!
It’s been a hurried couple of weeks in Paris with lots of work on writing and slowly getting acquainted with working and living in a new country. Just as I was starting to find my way around the neighborhood though it’s time to head back into the field. This time last year I was on … More Next Stop, Redonda
I’m prepping for the next trip to check out a rat infested island in the Caribbean and it’s bringing back a bunch of memories from Redonda. A few members of the eradication team have put together some terrific videos and photo galleries and I just want to quickly highlight them here. For some stunning pictures … More A few photos and videos from Redonda
One of our first goals on Redonda was to get a good sense for the density of lizards on the island. This is one of the key metrics that has changed following rat eradications elsewhere in the Lesser Antilles. To do that we used a few different methods, we’re hoping that each will give us a slightly different … More Walking around Redonda
This post is reposted from http://www.anoleannals.com and so might be a little familiar in its start to readers here. I’m back from Redonda and the expedition was a great success! I’m happy to report there were many Anolis nubilus boulder-hopping out of the way of the black rats and even blacker ground lizards on the island. In many ways the … More Reporting on the Reptiles of Redonda
Colin Donihue 