Wildlife of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha

Saint Helena has a small, introduced population of Asian house geckos, possibly the result of stowaways on produce shipments or cargo.

While Saint Helena is not as major of a breeding site for seabirds as Ascension is, it once had more endemic avian species prior to human discovery, all (but one) of which are now extinct; the wirebird (Charadrius sanctaehelenae) is a type of plover and is the national bird.

[3] Patrick O'Brian, in the fourth volume of his Aubrey–Maturin series has the ornithologist Fortescue in discussion with Stephen Maturin speak of an indigenous gallinule he observed on the island.

Over the centuries, several introduced mammals have gone feral, including domestic cats, dogs, mice, rats, and rabbits; donkeys and goats once inhabited the island, but no longer roam free.

[6][7][8][9] The central peaks of Saint Helena are home to an extraordinary set of ground beetles of the tribe Bembidiini, which are strikingly morphologically different from bembidiines found elsewhere.

[10] They have been found to form a clade of genetically similar species, being related to Bembidion alsium from the Indian Ocean island of Réunion.

Restoration plans for Inaccessible Island include investigating the impact and feasibility of eradicating a known parasitic wasp, Ichneumon insulator.

[5] Saint Helena and Ascension Island both have excellent and well-preserved coral ecosystems, which are very diverse and contain many endemic and unique fish species.

In recent years there has been a program to conserve and replant the great forest on the island, which was destroyed by human activity, causing widespread soil erosion.

There are a few plants endemic to Ascension Island also, these include the Marattia purpurascens, Asplenium ascensionis, Xiphopteris ascensionense, Pteris adscensionis, Euphorbia origanoides, and Sporobolus caespitosus.

Ascension includes large artificial forests planted over the past hundred years, mainly with introduced species, on Green Mountain.

The Millennium Forest Project has been highly successful and has boosted the chances of Saint Helena's treasured flora and fauna, and this is the main concentration of conservation on the island.

The main activities going on at the moment are a cat and rat eradication program, along with attempts to breed the native plant species on the island.

Tristan da Cunha has implemented several extremely successful conservation programs, most notably, the World Heritage Sites of Inaccessible and Gough Islands.