Biodiversity of an island

While reading Joanna Borg's article (July 10) on the subject of "trying to achieve a biodiversity target by 2010" on St Paul's Island I must point out to Ms Borg some facts.

First of all St Paul's is only one island and must never be called islands as she called them. Secondly anyone who frequents the island knows that not a single lizard is to be found there anymore. Podarcis filfolensis kieselbachi used to be abundant in the past but now not a single species is found on the whole island!

The last six species of wall lizard which roamed the island are now kept in captivity by Arnold Sciberras at his home and the probability is that Podarcis filfolensis kieselbachi is gone forever from our planet since the only two males that are kept are very old and probably could not reproduce.