MARK COLVIN: Bad weather has held up the project to rid Macquarie Island of feral creatures like rats and rabbits. The island lies halfway between Tasmania and Antarctica and bad weather has brought the $24 million program to a halt.
Seal and penguin hunters in the past introduced rats and rabbits to the island with severe consequences for the island's native species.
The Tasmanian Government says the eradication program will resume next year. But speaking from Macquarie Island, the project manager Keith Springer says it's a disappointing setback.
He told Meredith Griffiths that the team had only been able to lay eight per cent of its baits over the past two months.
KEITH SPRINGER: Well the weather's been unrelentingly bad. The conditions that we need to do our baiting are clear conditions so that the helicopters pilots have good visibility and wind speeds up to about 25 knots. Anything higher than that and we would risk the bait being blown off track.
We've had weeks on end really of wind speeds around the 25 to 40 knot range so above our thresholds. And many days where the cloud has descended on the plateau, the higher part of the island and blocked out visibility. In fact today visibility's a couple of hundred metres so we've got fog nearly to sea level today.
MEREDITH GRIFFITHS: Is that weather not to be expected when you are travelling down to and working on a sub-Antarctic island?
KEITH SPRINGER: The records for the last few years indicated that all of those years have had the conditions to be able to do a project like this. So we certainly had the confidence that, given a reasonable or an average year, then we should have had the opportunity with the weather to do the baiting we needed.
MEREDITH GRIFFITHS: So when did the team begin to realise that maybe you were just going to have to pull the plug on the eradication program for this year?
KEITH SPRINGER: I guess a couple of weeks ago we recognised that we had a very small amount of our baiting completed and by mid-July we were still hoping for the break in the weather that we needed to get going.
So we recognised then that a decision point would need to be reached, probably in late July, that if we hadn't got more baits out by then, we were seriously going to run short of time to complete the whole baiting project.
MEREDITH GRIFFITHS: How significant is this delay?
KEITH SPRINGER: Part of the answer to that is dependent on whether we are successful in getting funding to come back next year, which I'm hopeful that we will, but in terms of significance to the project, I would certainly describe it as a speed bump rather than a big deal.
In terms of the condition of the island, putting it off for another winter shouldn't have a big impact on the island and the ecosystem of the island. So, yeah I would describe it as a blip rather than a catastrophe, I think.
MEREDITH GRIFFITHS: How is everyone in the team feeling? Are people feeling that it's been a bit of a waste of time these past couple of months?
KEITH SPRINGER: Luckily I can say nobody's feeling that it's a waste of time and, in fact, quite the contrary because one of the benefits about being down here and doing the small amount of baiting that we have done is that we've been able to learn quite a lot about how effective the bait has been and our techniques of spreading it. We had a couple of teething issues with a few aspects of the operation which we've been able to resolve.
So I think we're all actually, we're obviously very disappointed that we came here to do a job and haven't been able to finish it and there's certainly been frustration that the weather has been so unrelenting but I think there's definitely some positives in terms of the lessons we've learnt and we're hopeful that we'll be able to come back next year and have a lot of those, I guess, uncertainties and issues resolved and be up for it to a higher degree.
MEREDITH GRIFFITHS: So the project's over for this year at least but how long will it be 'til you guys can actually leave the island and head home?
KEITH SPRINGER: Well we have, with the decision made to defer the aerial baiting we have some helicopter operations we still need to get done. We've got a bit of equipment at the south end of the island that we need to get back.
We need to shift a little bit of bait and we're going to try and install some field huts for the hunting teams that will follow the aerial baiting. So we'll be in a position to ask for our ship to come down fairly shortly, I think, once we've got some of those flying tasks completed, once we get the weather to do that, then we'll probably talk to the Antarctic Division about bringing the ship down.
So, could be in a couple of weeks or something like that.
MARK COLVIN: Keith Springer from the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service speaking from wild and remote Macquarie Island to Meredith Griffiths.
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