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New Zealand will attempt to eradicate rats and other unwanted predators by 2050:
An isolated archipelago, New Zealand once hosted almost 200 bird species, many of them, like the iconic kiwi, having become flightless over generations because of a lack of natural predators. But several recently introduced species, such as rats, possums, and weasellike carnivores called stoats, now kill about 25 million of these native birds every year. Yesterday, the country's prime minister, John Key, announced a $20 million commitment of seed money to set up Predator Free New Zealand Ltd., a company that would lead the charge in ridding the nation of the three mammals and five other foreign predators by 2050. Until now, similar eradication efforts by the country have focused on small islands; those efforts boast a 90% success rate in eliminating rodents, says James Russell, a conservation biologist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. The new goal, Russell says, is "the modern equivalent to landing someone on Mars" and will ultimately require new technologies and billions of dollars to succeed. But he is optimistic because local communities and organizations, which could foot a large portion of the total bill, are on board.
[...] Also, once eliminated, rats will likely keep coming back in, Merrill notes. "They can do it if they can prevent the rats from jumping off the boats," he predicts. Russell says that's doable. "We are currently close to a 100% success rate in intercepting new mammal arrivals on the islands." New Zealand's track record on its smaller islands bodes well, Martin says. "This challenge is of mind-blowing proportions, but if anyone can do it, the New Zealanders can."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 01 2016, @08:29AM
Think about how expensive it will be just to have effective measures to stop rats from getting out of foreign ships, planes etc and into NZ. And how expensive it would be to hunt down every last rat in the whole country (that includes in the forests, cliffs etc).
BTW I bet a cat kills more birds than a rat. There are probably more rats than cats now but still, rats don't really kill birds for fun whereas cats do.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday August 01 2016, @10:05AM
There's no mistake; the amount of money they are initially funding this project is middling. The article says that they expect to increase funding to the magnitude of billions over time... and make the locals pay for it.
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(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday August 02 2016, @03:20AM
The big difference is that while cats kill some birds, rats climb into nests and eat eggs and hatchlings -- which can eliminate a species in just a couple generations.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday August 02 2016, @04:25AM
This is true.
The North Island Brown Kiwi is big enough to fight off a rat when it is mature, but chicks can't, so eggs are removed from nests and hatched. Then when the chicks are old enough, they are released.
This seems to be working, to some degree, and numbers are increasing in places.
Also, there's some video (which I can't search for at the moment) of a Kiwi kicking the living shit out of a possum who was attempting to raid his nest. Awesome.