They all got exterminated.
[a href="vny!://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090612/lf_nm_life/us_alaska_rat"]vny!://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090612/lf_nm_life/us_alaska_rat[/a]
[span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1244846252_0"]Alaska's Rat Island[/span] is finally rat-free, 229 years after a Japanese shipwreck spilled rampaging rodents onto the remote [span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1244846252_1"]Aleutian island[/span], decimating the local bird population. After dropping poison onto the island from helicopter-hoisted buckets for a week and a half last autumn, there are no signs of living rats and some birds have returned, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.[/p] Rats have ruled the island since 1780, when they jumped off a sinking Japanese ship and terrorized all but the largest birds on the island. The incident introduced the non-native Norway rat -- also known as the brown rat -- to Alaska.[/p] [img style="width: 351px; height: 466px;" src="vny!://alaskamaritime.fws.gov/images/rat_island_field_camp_300dpi.jpg[/img] [img style="width: 462px; height: 346px;" src="vny!://alaskamaritime.fws.gov/images/rat_lone_biologist_on_rat_island_300dpi.jpg[/img]
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