We had been at sea for a day with another full day to go, the boat slowly putt-putting towards Mangareva, the central and largest island of the Gambier Islands in French Polynesia, away from Pitcairn, a lonely rock of a British Overseas Territory in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the remotest inhabited place on Earth.
On their way back to Britain, the rat-catchers had completed a study on uninhabited Henderson Island, a bird sanctuary and World Heritage Site, some 12 hours sailing from Pitcairn. The goal had been to figure out a way to eradicate the rat population without also hurting the birds they were trying to protect. A solution was in sight, but for the endemic flightless ‘chicken birds’ or Henderson Island rails, who seemed to have a dangerous appetite for the poisonous pellets intended for the rats.
Back on Pitcairn, these rails were often a topic of conversation. Locals had encountered them when they were younger, going on outings to Henderson for which they used the long boats that otherwise ferried passengers from larger vessels to shore. In the absence of a harbour, it’s the only way to set foot on Pitcairn. No runway possible, the journey to reach the island takes two full days across choppy waters from Mangareva.
One evening over dinner, the mother of my host shared stories of chicken birds coming remarkably close. ‘Curious creatures,’ she described them, ‘Eager to see what’s going on.’ They were bafflingly difficult to catch. The plan was to move a portion of the birds to another island before the actual culling of rats would start. I pictured a boat full of them nosily peering out over the vastness of the ocean, destination unknown. Pitcairners agreed their own island wasn’t suitable – it lacks sandy beaches and vegetation unlike Henderson.
All this was discussed as we helped ourselves to homemade strawberry crumble and bread pudding with steaming custard, copious dollops of vanilla ice-cream served on top. A Swiss traveller who joined for dinner enquired about the presence of whales off the coast. There were a few, but neither would you be able to spot them from the veranda yet, nor hear them sing at night. ‘Oh, they will go on the whole bloody night,’ the mother said, with glee in her eyes, ‘They say they are talking, but we call it singing. Gets tiring at some point.’After dinner I sauntered down to Adamstown, the only settlement on the island – named after John Adams, the single surviving mutineer the captain of the American whaleship met when he ‘rediscovered’ Pitcairn some two decades after the mutiny on HMS Bounty in 1789. The total number of people on Pitcairn rarely exceeds 45. This includes temporary visitors, some 35 descendants of the original Bounty mutineers, and the Polynesian women who accompanied them.
When it’s a clear night, the sky will be ablaze with stars. But the weather had been erratic for days, the dark clouds promising more rain blanketing the island in pitch-dark black. Up ahead, two lights bopped up and down, soon to reveal familiar faces – those belonging to other rat-catchers. Out for a stroll in shorts and sturdy rubber boots caked with mud, they were hoping to catch, well, rats.
I had not encountered a single rat during my stay, surprising considering that houses leave their doors open, and windows are rarely shut. At Henderson, rats were not a common sight either. But tales of their damage were shared widely. They once contributed to the extinction of the dodo in Mauritius and helped decimate the giant palm trees of Easter Island.
The attack of a sperm whale had sunk the Nantucket whaler Essex in 1820. 20 of its crewmen made it to Henderson Island. It had inspired Herman Melville to write Moby Dick, a tale of delirious determination, a battle of man vs nature, an ill-advised one. As well-intended as the plans appeared, I wondered about the response of the rats, treacherous seas and far-flung islands. A white whale in the making?
