A wood rat being released (credit: Clayton DeGayner).

I grew up in Florida, spending nearly every waking moment outdoors, and I never even knew there was a species called the Key Largo woodrat, much less that it is federally protected. Their anonymity was deserved, since until recently biologists thought there were only twenty-five to fifty of these cute little woodrats, which are about the size of a squirrel and quite adept at climbing trees. What makes this a great story is that usually when we hear about people monitoring the population size of a species, they turn out to be scientists with impressive titles and lots of letters behind their names. But sometimes it’s just average citizens trying to make a difference. Such is the case of Clay and Ralph DeGayner, two brothers working to save one of Florida’s most endangered creatures.

As Jane has noted, island species nearly everywhere are at risk once their island homes become altered by human development. And this is certainly true in the Florida Keys. Key Largo is particularly at risk. As the northernmost island in the archipelago and the nearest to Miami, it is rife with golf courses and homes and channelized waterfront. On this heavily developed island, the woodrats live between the north shore and the village of Key Largo itself. Their primary habitat is a ten-mile stretch of land that spreads into Crocodile Lake Wildlife Refuge and Dagny Johnson State Park. And like all federally endangered species, the Key Largo woodrat is under protection and study by the US Fish and Wildlife service.

Ralph and Clay with a supplemental nest structure that has been occupied by woodrats, who have piled the large number of sticks on top (credit: Clayton DeGayner).

The DeGayner brothers, who’ve always been interested in wildlife, even raising wild swans and wood ducks, got involved with the woodrats in 2004 when they drove into the refuge for the first time. Having heard about the woodrats, they asked the sole employee where they might be found. As Clay put it, “The manager laughed and said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding! You can’t see one.’” To which they responded by smiling and saying, “Well, we’ll just stick around until we do.” And that they have. These Michigan residents are only in the Keys half the year, but they spend most of their time with the woodrats. In fact, it took them nearly a year before they found their first individual, but since then they have made key discoveries.

Although federal and state wildlife biologists had been studying and trapping the woodrats for the past twenty years, little was known about how to recover the species until the DeGayners got involved. As Clay told me, “The biologists had documented the woodrat’s decline from over six thousand to as low as an estimate of twenty-five animals. And they expected them to go extinct within the next five to ten years.” Today, thanks to many state and federal agencies as well as the DeGayners’ efforts to research and protect the woodrats of Key Largo, the population is much more widespread on the island and numbering in the few hundreds.

Naturally, I asked how Clay and his brother became so successful in this recovery effort. “Of course, [the biologists] thought we would fail,” he said, “because we didn’t understand all the very specific requirements of the species. But we approached it more as detective work than as biology. Since we weren’t experts, we simply jumped in to learn for ourselves where the woodrats liked to live and how they lived.”

What they learned by careful observation is that the woodrats require some sort of a roof above them. “Everyone was surprised when we reported that the critters would nest beneath overturned boats!” Clay told me. “They also like ‘roofs’ such as coral rocks that have been tipped over by a falling tree in a hurricane.” In fact, Clay said, “Nearly everywhere we saw such a roof-like condition we found at least historic evidence of woodrat activity.” He added, “It doesn’t necessarily mean they are nesting at each location, but that they frequently use various protected sites for resting, feeding, or caring for their young.”

From the woodrat’s perspective, there seem to be two main advantages to having a tight roof overhead. “One is protection from predators, of course,” Clay said, “and the other is that it can rain up to a foot at a time in the Keys, and the roof keeps the burrows from getting wet.” When I pointed out that Key Largo is heavily developed and fairly upscale, and didn’t seem the sort of island that would tolerate leaving a lot of upturned trees, he laughed and said, “Yes, that could be the problem. We haven’t had enough hurricanes. While that wouldn’t please the island’s human residents, it is suspected that is what the woodrats need to ensure proper habitat. And we haven’t had a big hurricane in the northern Keys for forty or fifty years.”

But the brothers are not content to just wait and hope for the next Katrina-size storm to hit. They have begun putting out artificial roof structures—approximately four by six feet in size—for the woodrat. “We have already placed 120 of these artificial roofs,” Clay told me, “and everywhere we have placed them, eventually we have gotten woodrat activity.” Through trial and error, the brothers discovered that simply placing a roof structure will not work. The woodrats need them placed in an area with suitable habitat for them to occupy nests—and even, in some cases, latrine chambers for their use.

He points out that the key learning is in the daily tracking. To trap and track the woodrats, they work in cooperation with the wildlife authorities, using their radio telemetry equipment. Since they are endangered species, the brothers can radio-collar a limited number of them in order to track their whereabouts, he said. “That’s how we find out not just where they nest, but even what they are feeding on.” Or what’s feeding on them, which turns out to be owls, native snakes, fire ants, and invasive, exotic pythons.

Once Clay and Ralph thought they had discovered a new nest of woodrats because the signal from the collar had not moved much over a three-day period. However, under closer inspection, they discovered that the woodrat had been eaten by an eight-foot python; its radio collar was still beeping from inside the snake’s stomach. Unfortunately, escaped and released exotic pets like snakes and lizards pose a tremendous threat to wildlife in southern Florida, very often outcompeting, or even consuming, native wildlife. In fact, worldwide, introduced species are among the top five causes of extinction. Case in point: Sadly, when a necropsy was performed on the python, they discovered that in addition to the collared woodrat, there were the remains of at least one other endangered Key Largo woodrat as well inside. Clay said, “If you think about it, the python was a double felon, killing two federally protected animals, not just one.”

Though the python attack made national news, Clay was quick to point out that it was only part of the woodrat’s troubles. “We have thousands of feral cats in the Keys,” he admitted, “and against them they hardly stand a chance. So we try to educate residents about controlling their housecats and work for ways to reduce the number of strays and to never drop pets in the refuge.”

A supplemental structure built by Clay and Ralph Degayner for woodrats. (credit: Clayton DeGayner).

Protecting a rodent on a fancy island has taken some hard work. One challenge is making sure the locals don’t confuse the adorable little Key Largo woodrats with other rats that are often considered pests. “In fact,” Clay said, “when we catch a black rat, a common rodent that lives here in the Keys, in our trap we can tell what it is before we even open the trap because they smell terrible! Black rats eat garbage and they smell very bad. Whereas our little guys are very clean—they live in the trees and nest underground in very neat little structures.” And because of their natural diet of simply leaves, seeds, and fruit, Clay said, “They really don’t smell at all.”

He went on to point out, “Once someone is exposed to these very charismatic little animals, they immediately understand why we want to save them.” Though he admitted that the name rat is still a big initial hurdle. So when he and his brother go out to civic groups and schools to talk about the comeback of the woodrat, they give it another moniker. “We like to refer to these cute little guys as ‘Key Largo’s Koalas.’ Sure, people laugh at first, but what we need is for local residents to care about the wildlife on the island, and the woodrat is the best place to start.”

Conservationists and outdoor educators often tout the value of “citizen science” as the best way of getting the general public engaged with wildlife. Well, let me tell you, Clay and Ralph go way beyond helping with the annual songbird count. They are leaders in the effort to bring back the Key Largo woodrat and in getting the people of the northern Florida Keys to care about where they live. As Clay said, “We dream of the day we have a visitor center for the endangered species of Key Largo. Wouldn’t it be nice for our grandchildren and their grandchildren to be able to go to the refuge and ask to see a woodrat?”