India, Oct. 18 -- Macquarie Island, a remote Australian territory between Tasmania and Antarctica, is seeing the return of burrowing seabirds that had disappeared from its main island. The recovery of blue petrels offers an example of how removing introduced predators and other invasive animals can create better conditions for native wildlife.

A 2024 study published in Conservation Biology estimated that blue petrels increased at an annual rate of about 14% after cat eradication began to take effect. Surveys recorded approximately 5,588 breeding pairs in 2018, compared with an estimated 500 to 600 pairs on offshore coastal rock stacks in 1999. Researchers Jeremy P. Bird, Richard A. Fuller and Justine D. Shaw examined four burrowing seabi...