 The islands are named so because rats were accidentally introduced to Rat Island in about 1780. , after a government-funded eradication program, Rat Island is believed to be rat-free; it was renamed Hawadax Island in 2012.However, a post-operation assessment found that many of the local bird populations that the operation was designed to aid were negatively impacted—there was a far higher-than-expected nontarget mortality.An internal U.S.