[Rear View]

What are the odds?

In a career that spans 36-plus years working both on the supplier side and the PMP side, Viking Pest Control’s Bill Kolbe has witnessed the pest control industry transition away from the DDT days to present day pest control practices. But United Airlines apparently still associates Kolbe with the former widely used pesticide that was phased out by EPA in the early 1970s. After checking in for a recent flight, Kolbe was floored when he looked at his ticket confirmation: DDTK1L. “What are the chances of a PMP getting this confirmation number?” Kolbe said. “Just amazing. Does United really know me that well?”

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Bell’s Conservation Bait Appears on Commemorative Stamps

Rats are rarely the subject of new stamps, but a rat gnawing on Bell Laboratories’ green conservation bait pellet debuted on a set of six stamps commemorating the work being done on South Georgia Island to rid this UK Overseas Territory of millions of rodents that are threatening its seabird populations.

Along with the targeted rat, the new stamps depict scenes of what has transpired since 2007 when the UK-based charity, the South Georgia Heritage Trust (SGHT) and its US counterpart, Friends of South Georgia Island (FOSGI), undertook the monumental task of ridding this once spectacular seabird habitat of rats and mice.

Invasive rats, riding aboard the ships of 19th and 20th century whalers and sealers, were introduced to this Antarctic treasure and have preyed on the chicks and eggs of defenseless seabirds ever since. At greatest risk are petrel, pintail and prion populations which nest on the ground or in shallow burrows, easy prey for foraging rats. The endemic South Georgia pipit, pictured on one of the stamps, is threatened with extinction from rat predation.

All that will be reversed and seabird populations increased by an estimated 100 million when the South Georgia Habitat Restoration Project successfully removes every rodent from the island.

At a cost of roughly $10.3 million, the stakes are high but the work of a dedicated international team of specialists, who call themselves Team Rat, has already completed two of three baiting phases. In the first pilot phase in 2011, a team of 11 experts, with the aid of a restored Bolkow-105 helicopter once owned by Jacqueline Onassis, aerially broadcast some 48 tons of Bell’s pelleted conservation bait over 128 sq. km, one-tenth of the total infested area. They also hand-baited the structures in the old whaling station.

Following that success, Team Rat returned in February 2013 for phase two, this time employing three helicopters to spread 200 tons of Bell’s pelleted bait over 226 square miles of the island. Flying in some of the worst weather in decades, the 25-member Team Rat successfully reached its goal on May 18, literally minutes before icy winter conditions closed in.

With seventy percent of the rodent-infested areas now baited, the team expects to complete the remaining 74,000 infested acres in 2015. Project manager, Professor Tony Martin of the University of Dundee, Scotland, said, “If SGHT is successful, the island will once again become the safe haven for wildlife that it was when Captain Cook discovered it back in 1775.”

The set of six stamps, along with a collector’s first-day cover, were produced by Creative Direction (Worldwide) and marketed by Pobjoy Mint. Photographers were Paul Wilkinson, Oli Prince and Tony Martin. Stamps and first day covers, issued in mid-December, are now available to be ordered directly from the Falkland Islands Post Office, www.falklandstamps.com, or collectors can obtain wholesale quantities from Pobjoy Mint by e-mailing John Smith at jcs137@pobjoy.com.