Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust Gugh, brown rat ("Rattus norvegicus") free, to help breeding sea birds, which lost 25% of their populations between 1983 and 2006. The rats eat eggs and kill the chicks of those birds that nest in burrows or on the ground. Rat removal began in October 2013 by a team of thirty volunteers led by Wildlife Management International Limited (WMIL) of New Zealand, and there has been no signs of rats on St Agnes and Gugh since December 2013. WMIL will return to the islands to do a final check for rats in 2016. In 2014 Manx shearwater ("Puffinus puffinus") bred
Christmas shearwater subalaris"). The Christmas shearwater is a slender-bodied shearwater, about 36 cm long, with a wingspan of around 75 cm, and weighs around 350 g. It has dark plumage all over, generally blackish-grey with a rusty-brown tinge, slightly paler on the underside of the bird, and with some small edging of white under the chin and pale fringes to the upperwing coverts. It has brown-grey feet and a dark bill and eyes. Both sexes are alike, as are the young after fledging. Nestlings are covered in dark grey down feathers. The species closely resembles the sooty ("Puffinus griseus") and short-tailed shearwaters