"Complex effort to rid San Nicholas Island of cats declared a success"

     The article "Complex effort to rid San Nicholas Island of cats declared a success" is taken from LA Times and written by Steve Chawkins. This particular article discusses a plan that was set-up to get red every single cat living on the island. The plan took at least six agencies, an estimation of $3 million dollars, and 18 months of trapping all the cats. Originally, biologists tried using dogs to scare the cats into the traps, but they kept getting distracted by other animals on the island, such as foxes. Their other plan was to use "fielid-attracting phonics" which was digitally recorded meows, but that that did not work either. Finally, it took a bobcat hunter who was originally retired and around 250 traps that had built-in flashing lights that could be seen by researchers from miles away. The reason that they decided to get rid of all the cats was because they were beginning to actually endanger other animals that were living there as well. For example, they were reportedly feeding on an endangered type of lizards and also Western gulls and Brandts' cormorants. The cats even competed with the island foxes for food.