Vanessa Feltz, Radio 2 - Pause For Thought

Broadcast May 2013 - Theme of Great Ideas.

Audacious ideas...

spreading rat poison over S Georgia

Some ideas are just ridiculous – I mean really. They make you shake your head with a look of defeated incomprehension – "you can’t be serious!"

Other ideas are simply audacious, an impossible dream, but worth a go, and one of those is happening right now. South Georgia is a sub Antarctic island sitting in the southern Atlantic. Its home to a vast array of wildlife from elephant seals to penguins to albatrosses and is hailed as one of the greatest wildlife spectacles on earth. But there are visitors on the island who have outstayed their welcome – by a long way.

Rats were introduced over a hundred years ago and have multiplied and spread, munching their way through millions of seabird eggs – and live chicks – every year. So much so that some species of bird are no longer found on the island at all. So Team Rat is there as I speak and their aim is to eradicate all the rats – every single one – from the island – and as it’s about 100 miles long and up to 20 miles wide – that is a big job. To put right what we made wrong, no matter how seemingly impossible – is a worthy, inspirational act and I hope they succeed.

I wonder what the world would look like if we were all more audacious in doing good no matter how difficult. What if we used our wonderful, inspired brains to do more healing and restoring. Now that is a divine aspiration worthy of people made in the image and likeness of God.


You can find a video of the expedition here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324734904578243631470293820.html

In my original piece I described the ridiculous idea referenced above: It was a crazy notion someone came up with, years ago, of putting a bag outside the car to put your dog in so that it wouldn't make the seats dirty!  Radio 2 objected to this so took it out.  Most odd.