In Iceland, the Cute Battle for Survival With the Even Cuter
Hunters Cull Rabbits to Help
Puffins in Fight for Holes;
Some See Man as Culprit
VESTMANNAEYJAR, Iceland -- Asmundur Palsson was perched like a sniper along the craggy cliff, carefully aiming his .22-caliber rifle down the steep, grassy slope of a 600-foot-deep cove.
"Ahhhh, yes," he whispered -- his finger on the trigger, his eye in the scope. "A black rabbit." But just before he shot at the critter poking from the hole -- whoosh -- out flew a black, white and orange little bird toward the North Atlantic Ocean. "No, it's a puffin," he cursed.
Here on this volcanic island off the southern coast of Iceland, Mr. Palsson is hunting rabbits to try to save the nation's beloved puffins. More than 10 million puffins breed here, making Iceland the world's largest puffin habitat. But in recent years, the native treasure has been threatened by pet rabbits. Both rabbits and puffins live in holes in the ground. Puffins use them four months a year to lay their eggs. The rabbits fancy them year-round to live and breed.
And there may not be room for both. New research shows that the rabbits are disrupting the puffins' habitat and causing them to breed less. The result is a battle of existence between the puffin and the rabbit. It is also bringing a war of words between those who want to preserve the clownish-faced seabird and those who oppose shooting rabbits.
For many Icelanders, the puffin fills a special cultural niche. In an annual rite, Icelandic children greet newly hatched pufflings and carry them to the sea in tiny boxes to prevent them from getting disoriented by the city lights. Iceland also relies on the puffin for tourist dollars. Birdwatchers and tourists from across the world flock to the islands to gaze at the puffin in its wild habitat.
To defend their bird, the Icelandic government is enlisting a small army of hunters, like Mr. Palsson, to pick off rabbits one by one.
"They just multiply," says Ingvar Sigurdsson, director of the government-run South Iceland Nature Center. "If the rabbit hunters weren't shooting 600 to 700 a year, it would be a disaster."
But now some people are calling for the hunters to leave the rabbits alone. "They're trying to wipe them out of the entire island," proclaims Sigridur Asgeirdottir, a feisty, "70-something" lawyer at the Icelandic Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The rabbits "are not doing any harm," she insists.
Ms. Asgeirdottir says the worst enemy of the puffin is not the rabbit -- but man. Every year Icelandic men band together and go puffin hunting. They use a triangular net on the end of a long bamboo pole and scour the islands for puffins. Once they are caught in the net, they are killed, sold at the local market, and served up as a delicacy on dinner plates throughout Iceland. Up to 200,000 puffins are killed every year during hunting season.
Puffin hunters say they love the seabirds, but defend the tradition, which has been passed down through the centuries.
Rabbits are not native to Iceland. Environmental researchers suspect they were imported from Spain to the island as pets about 30 years ago. Nobody knows for sure why they are now becoming peskier.
Mr. Palsson, a happy-go-lucky man with wispy gray hair, has been hunting rabbits about 10 years. He blames the problem on a local farmer who tried to start a rabbit farm -- perhaps for meat or fur -- but then gave up and let the rabbits free. Mr. Sigurdsson of the Nature Center says the problem has been mounting as more children become disenchanted by, or bored with, their pets and release them into the wild.
One thing is sure: Vestmannaeyjar is essentially rabbit heaven -- there are few predators, thousands of ready-made holes and acres and acres of untouched grassy fields for grazing. That allows them to breed like, well, rabbits.
Last year Ms. Asgeirdottir for the first time discovered that rabbit hunting was going on. She says she was horrified when she saw a local newspaper article with a photograph of Mr. Palsson "holding a dead rabbit by his ears." She adds, "He was praised like some hero because he caught this rabbit." She immediately sent a letter to the Icelandic Department of Environment, demanding that the department stop issuing rabbit-hunting permits. She argues that the hunting is not only unethical, but illegal, since rabbits are domestic animals -- like cows and sheep -- protected by law.
'Foreign Species'
The government disagrees. In a letter to Ms. Asgeirdottir dated Oct. 13, 2005, the Department of Environment says that rabbits are not counted as a protected domestic animal, and in any case it reserves the right to exterminate "foreign species that are a threat to local ecosystems."
Mr. Palsson and others who want to eradicate the rabbit say the problem goes beyond posing a threat to puffins. Rabbits have a huge appetite for grass. They eat the grass around their hole, and the roots that grow into the holes. All the intensive snacking weakens the grass and causes the land to become unstable. And since puffins typically nest on steep slopes, they fear the loss of stability could eventually lead to a landslide.
In 2001, the biology department at the University of Iceland sponsored research into the puffin-rabbit conflict. Freydis Vigfusdottir, a graduate student who was the lead researcher, monitored the location and behavior of the rabbits on the island over four years. She mapped the location of the rabbits and used a plumber's camera to view inside the rabbit and puffin holes.
She found that puffin and rabbit burrows look similar to the naked eye. They are both circular holes in a grassy slope. But there are major differences. Puffins use their large beaks to dig narrow, circular tubes that tunnel about three to five feet into the ground. The rabbits move into the puffin hole when the puffins are at sea for eight months during the winter. They remodel the puffin holes to give them much wider entrances and connect the burrows with tunnels to provide escape routes.
Puffins tend to use the same hole year after year. And they are also private birds that shun the communal architecture favored by rabbits. So when they return after a winter at sea, and find a rabbit occupying their abode, they are none too happy.
Fight or Flight
Researchers aren't entirely sure what happens when a puffin directly confronts a rabbit in its burrow. It is possible that they actually fight -- and the puffin would likely win, given its pointy, rock-like beak. But puffins are typically not fighters, so most researchers think they just retreat when they find their hole occupied by a rabbit. The evicted puffin either has to dig a new hole, or go the year without nesting.
In her study, Ms. Vigfusdottir concluded that about 64% of puffin holes in rabbit-free areas were "active" -- meaning they had puffins nesting in them. In rabbit-rich areas, about 10% of the puffin holes were physically occupied by rabbits, and 64% of the holes were "inactive" -- meaning they had neither puffins nor rabbits in them. She fears this is evidence that the rabbit is causing the puffin to breed less, threatening the bird's very existence.
Ms. Vigfusdottir thinks people who are opposed to rabbit hunting are swayed by "the cute factor."
"It's somehow inconceivable that a cute, furry animal like that -- just like your stuffed animal back from childhood -- could be bad," she says. "If it was a rat, people would go ballistic."
兔占雀巢该死罪？
阿斯芒杜尔?帕尔森(Asmundur Palsson)像狙击手一样躲藏在陡峭的山崖边，小心翼翼地把口径22毫米的步枪对准600英尺深山坳里一面郁郁葱葱的陡坡。
“啊……没错，”他喃喃自语道，同时把手指放到了扳机上，眼睛开始瞄准，“是只黑兔子”。然而，正当他准备向从洞里探出头来的小家伙开枪时，突然，“呼”地一声冲出一只黑白橙三色的小鸟，朝北大西洋方向飞去了。“噢不，是只海雀，”他骂道。
在冰岛南部海岸外的西人岛(Vestmannaeyjar)，帕尔森正在为了拯救深受冰岛人喜爱的海雀而猎杀野兔。冰岛是世界上最大的海雀栖息地，有超过1000万只海雀在这里生活。但最近几年，这种国宝级海鸟面临来自兔子的生存威胁。兔子和海雀都习惯在地洞里生活，海雀每年有四个月的时间要在洞里产卵，而兔子则全年都是在洞里生活和繁殖的。
但好像没有足够的空间同时容纳这两种动物。最新研究表明，野兔干扰了海雀的生存环境，使得它们的繁殖数量下降，结果就是引发了两种动物之间的生存大战。而与此同时，持两种相反观点的人也在大打口水战，一派主张要保护面孔滑稽可爱的海雀，另一派则反对射杀兔子。
对于很多冰岛人来说，海雀在文化上占有特殊的位置。每年，冰岛都会举行一个仪式，孩子们迎接刚刚孵化出来的海雀宝宝，把它们装在小盒子里，送到海边，这样海雀就不会因城市灯光的干扰而迷失方向了。冰岛还依靠这些海雀获得旅游收入。来自世界各地的鸟类观察家和游客蜂拥而至，只为看到在野外生活的海雀。
为了保护海雀，冰岛政府正在招募一支小小的猎人队，把兔子逐一清除掉。帕尔森就是这个团队的成员。
政府机构南冰岛自然中心(South Iceland Nature Center)的主席英格瓦尔?西格森(Ingvar Sigurdsson)说，“兔子的数量成倍增长，如果不是靠猎人每年打掉600至700只兔子，这将会演变为一场灾难。”
但现在却有人呼吁猎人对兔子手下留情。“他们要把整个岛上的兔子都消灭乾净，”冰岛防止虐待动物协会(Icelandic Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals)的律师西格里杜尔?阿斯盖尔多提尔(Sigridur Asgeirdottir)称。阿斯盖尔多提尔70多岁了，但精力充沛。她坚持说，这些兔子“并没有什么危害”。
阿斯盖尔多提尔认为海雀最大的敌人不是野兔，而是人类。每年都有冰岛人成群结伙地猎杀海雀。他们挥舞顶端带三角网的长竹竿，在岛上四处捕猎这种鸟。鸟一旦落入网中就会被杀死，拿到当地的市场上去卖，然后就被烹饪成美味端到全冰岛各地的餐桌上来。每年在打猎季节被杀死的海雀有20万只之多。
捕鸟者声称他们热爱这些鸟儿，这么做只是为了延续数百年来的传统。
野兔并不是冰岛上土生土长的动物，环境学家怀疑它们是在大约30年前作为宠物从西班牙引进的。没有人确切知道它们为什么现在变成了大麻烦。
随遇而安、长著稀疏灰发的帕尔森捕杀兔子已经有10年的时间了。帕尔森指责一名当地的农夫是目前生态问题的罪魁祸首，因为这个农夫开了一个兔子农场──也许是为了要兔肉或兔毛，但后来他不干了，把兔子都放生了。自然中心的西格森又指出，越来越多的孩子对宠物兔失去了兴趣，把兔子放回到大自然中，使得问题变得愈发严重。
有一点是可以肯定的：韦斯特曼纳群岛是兔子的天堂，食肉动物少，有成千上万个已经挖好的洞可以栖息，还有大片大片完好的草地来填饱肚子。得天独厚的条件使它们能够快速地繁殖。
去年，阿斯盖尔多提尔女士第一次发现人们在搏杀兔子。她表示，当在一份当地报纸上看到帕尔森提著一只死兔子的照片时，她十分震惊。她说：“就因为抓到这只兔子，他受到了英雄般的赞扬。”她立即给冰岛环境部写了一封信，要求停止发放猎兔许可证。她说，猎兔不仅有违道德，还是非法行为，因为兔子跟牛和羊一样属于受法律保护的家养动物。
然而政府不同意她的观点，因为“兔子是外来物种”。环境部在2005年10月13日给阿斯盖尔多提尔女士的信中表示，兔子不在受保护的家养动物之列，并表示在任何情况下，环境部保留“消灭对本地生态系统造成威胁的外来物种”的权利。
帕尔森和其他一些希望根除兔子的人指出，兔子威胁的还不只是海雀。兔子对草的消耗量极大，它们把洞穴周围的草都啃光，连长在洞内的草根也不放过。兔子的大肆啃噬使得草的生长变得脆弱，土质也变得松动。由于海雀一般是在陡峭的山坡上筑巢，人们担心土质松动会带来山体滑坡。
冰岛大学生物学系在2001年赞助了有关海雀-野兔冲突的研究。研究生弗雷迪斯?维格福斯多提尔(Freydis Vigfusdottir)是这个项目的主要研究员，她花了四年时间跟踪野兔在岛上的活动地点和行为。她画出野兔活动的区域，还用特制的照相机深入到野兔和海雀的洞穴里观察。
她发现，从肉眼来看，海雀和野兔的洞穴没什么区别，都是圆形的，挖在长满草的斜坡上。但这两者其实有很大的不同。海雀用自己的大嘴挖出狭窄的圆形坑道，能深到地下3至5英尺。冬天的八个月时间，海雀是在海上度过的，这时野兔就把它们的洞穴霸占了。兔子对海雀的洞进行改建，把入口挖宽很多，并用坑道把洞穴连起来，以便逃生之用。
海雀习惯于长年使用同一个洞穴，而且它们喜欢独处，因此不喜欢野兔偏爱的公共设施。因此，当海雀过冬后从海上回来后，发现自己的窝被野兔占了，它们自然非常不满。
这时候，是打一架还是飞走？当海雀在洞里面对面碰上了野兔会发生什么情况，研究人员还没有完全弄清楚。有可能它们的确打过架，而海雀凭著它像石头一样坚硬的尖喙可能会取胜。但海雀本身并不好斗，因此大多数研究者认为，当发现洞穴被兔子占了之后，它们就退出来了。无家可归的海雀要么重新挖一个洞，要么整年都不筑巢。
维格福斯多提尔的结果发现：在没有野兔活动的区域，约64%的海雀洞穴都是“活跃的”，即有海雀在里面筑巢；而在野兔活动频繁的地区，约10%的海雀洞被野兔霸占，64%的洞穴都“不活跃”，即既没有海雀也没有野兔在里面活动。她担心，这证明野兔导致海雀繁殖数量下降，威胁了海雀的生存。
维格福斯多提尔认为，有的人反对捕杀野兔是因为它们“伶俐可爱”。
她说，“难以相信像兔子这么毛茸茸又可爱的动物──它们就像我们童年时的填充玩具一样──能造成如此巨大的危害。换作是老鼠，人们早就暴跳如雷了。”
Lauren Etter
