Paradise, with a few hundred rats

The Palmyra Atoll, located 400 miles north of the equator in the South Pacific, has become a second home to 10 Valley residents who have worked on a rat eradication project there during the last two years.

Chuck and Sally Heath recently returned from their second three-month "tour of duty" with the project, in which more than 20,000 rats were targeted.

Now, there are less than 100 rats left on the atoll, Chuck Heath said, but the work only gets harder from this point.

"The rats left are very, very smart. We're basically trying to catch and poison their young, and outlast them," Chuck Heath said. "The U.S.D.A. information they gave us said that 90 percent of the effort spent trying to eradicate any species will be spent on the final 2 percent living. It's survival of the fittest."

In this case, it's actually survival of the birds. The reason the rats are being killed is because they eat the eggs of the tens of thousands of birds that return to the Palmyra Atoll each spring, which is seriously hurting the birth rate of the birds.

The atoll supports some of the rarest species of birds in the world. There are more red-footed boobies in the Palmyra Atoll than anywhere in the world, except the Galapagos Islands. Killing the rats is vital to the continuation of many of the species.

During the last year and a half, much progress has been made. When the project started, one Valley woman, Barbara Moore, reported catching 91 rats in a single day. In contrast, during the last three months Chuck and Sally Heath spent there, they could go a whole day without even seeing a rat.

"They forage at night. They'd take the bait during the day and then go into the jungle at night," Sally Heath said.

Keeping up with the rats is tough work. A single pair of breeding rats can account for 1,500 rats each year, so killing the young and outlasting the parents is the best strategy.

The Heaths first became involved in the project through the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services office. They volunteered for the second trip, and hope to make one more trip to the atoll, probably sometime next year.

"Our hearts are really in it," Sally Heath said.

Chuck Heath said that other than the heat and humidity, there are really only two dangers.

"Sharks and falling coconuts. In the water, the sharks come right up to you and are very aggressive. On the land, you have to watch out for coconuts because one falling 70 or 80 feet could kill you," Chuck Heath said.

One thing that fell often was the rain, the Heaths said. During the previous three months, Chuck Heath said it rained all but three days. In August alone, it rained 19 inches -- and the atoll gets 175 inches annually.

"But you are thankful for the rain because it cools everything down," Chuck Heath said. "It's so hot there, you need the rain."

The atoll is the very definition of remote, and other than an emergency satellite phone and an e-mail terminal, the Heaths had no contact with the outside world.

They would ask people arriving on the islands about the news. The only thing he missed was sports scores, Chuck Heath said.

"I'd ask who's doing what in the NFL and what was going on with the World Series. Someone said the Angels won. The Angels?" Chuck Heath said.

Chances are, the atoll will remain out of touch for the rest of the world for years to come. In 1947, the owners of the islands, the Fullard-Leos of Hawaii, were granted the title by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Previously, the U.S. Navy used it as a base during World War II -- and a lot of naval artifacts still exist there. Heath said seven live anti-tank mines were found on the islands.

There were countless old Coke bottles found on the islands, and naval "pill boxes" can be found around every corner of the jungle. For Heath, it was paradise.

"I'm a junk collector, so I had a good time going through everything. I brought quite a lot back with me," Chuck Heath said.

Through the years, there were attempts to buy the islands, by many different groups -- most interested in developing them into such things as resorts or casinos.

Finally, the Fullard-Leos sold the islands, to The Nature Conservancy, an environmental group.

The Fullard-Leos got $30 million and the guarantee that no commercial activity would take place on the islands. Since then, The Nature Conservancy has committed to keeping Palmyra in its natural state. So far, the rat eradication project is the only activity on the islands.

The rat eradication project base camp was built by two Wasilla residents -- Scotty and Debby Richter. The project is scheduled to continue through next year.

"We figure we've killed 20,000 rats so far, so why quit now?" Chuck Heath said.