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Message: <blockquote data-quote="John Hague" data-source="post: 1257803" data-attributes="member: 51438">Anyone watch the Britain's lost world programmes that were repeated (subtitled) late on BBC4 last week? Interesting programmes looking at why the St Kildans left St Kilda and looked at there eating habits, Puffins, Fulmar and Gannet were staples.One interesting thought as to why they left was because they slowly poisoned the soil there and couldn't grow any crops. It seems they used their own faeces to fertilise the soil along with seabird carcasses being dumped too close to the fields.As an aside one party of men and boys who had gone to the small island of Stac an Armin to collect gannets were spared a small pox outbreak that decimated the population in 1726. The downside was the three men and eight boys spent 9 months on the rock until rescued by a passing boat from the mainland. On their return to St Kilda they found out why no one had come back for them a few days after they landed on the island.</blockquote>