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
Little shearwater Little shearwater The little shearwater ("Puffinus assimilis") is a small shearwater in the petrel family Procellariidae. Despite the generic name, it is unrelated to the puffins, which are auks, the only similarity being that they are both burrow-nesting seabirds. This shearwater has the typically "shearing" flight of the genus, dipping from side to side on stiff wings with few beats, the wingtips almost touching the water, though in light winds it has a more flapping flight than that of its larger relatives. In flight it looks cross-shaped, with its wings held at right angles to the body, its colouration changing