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
Gwennap Head 15 October each year and most of the recording was by volunteers who spent up to twelve hours a day on seawatch. The main targeted species were Balearic shearwater ("Puffinus mauretanicus") and basking shark, along with the ocean sunfish (or common mola). Marine mammals such as whales, dolphins and grey seal ("Halichoerus grypus") were additional main targets. During a seawatch on 28 August 2015 a red-billed tropicbird ("Phaethon aethereus") was seen over the Runnel Stone, a bird that usually frequents tropical areas. Gwennap Head is part of the Land’s End granite massif with shallow, free-draining and acidic soils. The dominant