![]() ![]() More importantly, he knew this four-mile-long island hosts the planet’s largest colony of Black-vented Shearwaters-gray pelagic birds known for their shoreline flights, raspy cries, and nocturnal tendencies. He also knew that what Natividad lacks in mammals, it makes up for in birds: auklets, cormorants, pelicans, ospreys, and herons, to name just a few. But after nearly two decades of working on Natividad, and having grown up on a neighboring island, Charly knew this sensitive ecosystem had evolved without the presence of rats-or any mammalian predators. In most locales, a predawn rat sighting would cause no greater alarm than a shudder, since members of the genus Rattus have set up shop in ecosystems around the globe. When it darted back through the beam, Charly became certain: His tiny island harbored a big rat. The figure’s long tail, protruding ears, and fuzzy posterior were way too bulky to be those of a cactus mouse. This time he shone a flashlight into his shrubbery to get a better look. He next glimpsed the four-legged creature about a month later, in the wee hours of June 14. ![]() Its outline was that of an out-of-place critter, but since he saw barely a shadow, Charly dismissed it. But one morning before dawn in spring 2019, as he returned home from a shift at the water treatment facility, Charly (as he’s known to Natividad’s 300-odd residents) spotted an unusual body skittering past his mallow bush. If it wasn’t an invasive ground squirrel, known locally as the juancito, bothering his plants, it was a tiny cactus mouse-Natividad’s only native terrestrial mammal. Juan Carlos Ruiz Miranda had spent many early mornings chasing furry pests from his garden on Isla Natividad, a windy stretch of sand off Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula. ![]()
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