New Zealand’s war on predators

NO ONE can accuse New Zealand’s government of a lack of ambition for the country’s wildlife. Earlier this year it came up with a new plan to save what might be regarded as the planet’s most unconservable bird—a flightless parrot called the kakapo that is basically a ready-meal with feathers. Now, it proposes to top this by eliminating almost all ground-dwelling predators from the entire archipelago, thus making New Zealand safe not just for kakapos, but for myriad other creatures that evolved there unhunted until humans introduced rats, cats, stoats, possums and so on.

The project, “Predator Free New Zealand”, was announced on July 25th. It will be run by a public-private partnership similar to the one that looks after the kakapo. New Zealand’s taxpayers will seed it with NZ$28m ($20m) on condition that twice this sum is raised elsewhere. The objective is to eliminate three types of introduced predator—rats, weasels and possums—by 2050. To placate the country’s moggy lovers, cats are mostly off the list at the moment, though feral felines living on public land will be legitimate targets.

Eradicating introduced…Continue reading
Source: Economist