Vermin are running wild on Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel, putting its bird population at risk.

The island, a granite outcrop three miles long and half a mile wide, is home to a variety of protected plants and animals.

But two of its most important seabirds, the puffin and the Manx shearwater, are being plagued by the island's rapidly growing rat population.

Extinction warning

Experts fear as many as 40,000 of the non-native vermin may be living on Lundy after arriving on boats calling at the island.

There is something serious happening to the seabirds on Lundy... the rats are pushing the birds over the brink

Stuart Burgess, spokesman for English Nature

The rats feed on the birds' eggs and chick, leaving them close to extinction.

English Nature said puffin numbers on Lundy have fallen from more than 3,500 pairs in 1939 to less than 10 pairs in 2000.

It has commissioned a specialist team to get rid of the rodents using traps and make Lundy rat-free by next Easter.

Poison traps

Stuart Burgess, spokesman for the organisation, said: "There is something serious happening to the seabirds on Lundy, and it is bad enough to take the birds to the point of extinction.

"The island is not swarming with rats but there are thousands there and it is not sustainable.

"They are pushing the birds over the brink."

The �50,000 operation to exterminate the rats will see thousands of specially designed traps baited with poison laid in a strategic grid across Lundy.

Once the animals are dead, English Nature will then attempt to re-introduce seabirds to the island, as well as working to ensure the vermin are kept away.