In 2017, Antigua and Barbuda removed over 6,000 rats and starving goats from Redonda; by 2019, vegetation rose over 20-fold and ground lizards eightfold
For years, Redonda looked less like a Caribbean paradise and more like a barren volcanic outcrop. Its steep cliffs and rocky surface were stripped of vegetation, while invasive goats and thousands of black rats consumed or destroyed much of the island’s fragile wildlife.Then conservationists removed the animals that did not belong there, and Redonda began…