Editing Diego Garcia (section)

====Mammals====
No [[mammal]] species are native on Diego Garcia, with no record of bats.<ref name="Stoddart_163_170">Stoddarrt, D. R. (1971): "Terrestrial fauna of Diego Garcia and other Chagos atolls". In: [[#Stoddart|Stoddart & Taylor (1971)]], pp. 163–170.</ref> Other than rats (''[[Rattus rattus]]''), all "wild" mammal species are feral descendants of domesticated species. During the plantation era, Diego Garcia was home to large herds of Sicilian donkeys (''[[Equus asinus]]''), dozens of horses (''[[Equus caballus]]''), hundreds of dogs (''[[Canis familiaris]]''), and house cats (''[[Felis catus]]''). In 1971, the BIOT Commissioner ordered the extermination of [[Free-ranging dog#Feral dogs|feral dogs]] following the departure of the last plantation workers, and the program continued through 1975, when the last feral dog was observed and shot.<ref>Bruner, Phillip, "Avifaunal and Feral Mammal Survey of Diego Garcia, Chagos Archipelago, British Indian Ocean Territory", 17 October 1995, pp. 3–23.</ref> Donkeys, which numbered over 400 in 1972, were down to just 20 individuals in 2005.<ref name="NRMP_G_4_27">[[#NRMP|Natural Resources Management Plan (2005)]], Appendix G, p. 4.27.</ref> The last horse was observed in 1995,<ref name="NRMP_G_4_27"/> and by 2005, just two cats were thought to have survived an island-wide eradication program.{{Citation needed|date=August 2010}}