Nature can fight back after trouble with rats

Hawadax Island in Alaska is now rodent free.

Rats eat the eggs and chicks of nesting seabirds. St Patrick, in the guise of the National Parks and Wildlife Service, seeks to banish these rodent pests from Great Saltee, Co Wexford, graveyard of  1,000 rat-infested ships. 

Patrick may have ousted the snakes with a wave of his crozier, but giving the Saltee vermin their P45s is a tougher proposition.