from Hacker News

A remote island's battle against seabird-killing ants (2015)

by hycaria on 8/31/21, 2:34 PM with 34 comments

• by Permit on 8/31/21, 6:04 PM

  This article is from 2015. It looks like this year (2021) they announced that they have removed all of the ants from Johnston Atoll National Wildlife Refuge: https://lmtribune.com/outdoors/crazy-ant-strike-team-complet...

• by yardie on 8/31/21, 4:54 PM

  Sounds like something I would have signed up for as a fresh college grad who wasn't quite ready to join corporate America.

• by gscott on 9/1/21, 1:32 AM

  Video tour of the island by one of the volunteers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrRfIbuwFf0

• by greeneggs on 8/31/21, 11:45 PM

  Here's a similar story about eliminating Argentine ants from Santa Cruz Island (near Los Angeles, California):

  http://www.californiaislands.net/argentine-ants

  The page was last updated in 2016. I'm not sure of the current status of the project.

• by withants on 8/31/21, 8:56 PM

  with ants

• by michaelcampbell on 8/31/21, 3:41 PM

  Well that's horrifying.

• by EMM_386 on 8/31/21, 4:39 PM

  The ants arrived on driftwood, it doesn't seem like there was any unnatural cause.

  By trying to save these seabirds, they are actually messing with nature and the evolutionary process of the island.