The Nature Conservation Research Institute in Manaaki Whenua has entered into a $2.8 million (HUF 1.12 billion HUF) collaboration with Stewart Island – or Rakiura in Maori – animal protection organization, Predator Free Rakiura, to
Extermination of opossums, rats, feral cats and hedgehogs in four years.
– The online version of the Guardian reported.
The project also includes research programs to study pest populations to understand how to control them more effectively.
Located near the South Island, Rakiura covers nearly 180,000 hectares, is home to about four hundred permanent residents, and is visited by approximately 45,000 tourists each year. National parks, distinctive wildlife, dunes, and pristine freshwater ecosystems make the island valuable, and it’s also home to many endangered native species, including birds, geckos, and bats.
The entry of pests was a big blow
The introduction of pests has dealt a major blow to sensitive plants and animals, including the flightless kiwi, which has become a national symbol, or the night parrot, the world’s heaviest and flightless parrot.
Rakura is currently in a buri or melancholy state. The visitor may see the beautiful treasures on the surface, but the true power and essence of the island will be known when the many native species inhabit the island as it was in the time of our ancestors.
– said Dean Wangham, president of the organization fighting freedom from predators.
“What we’re learning here will help plunder the entire country,” the Manaki Wainwa Research Institute wrote in a statement.
Similar looting was carried out all over the world, including on the island of South Georgia in the Atlantic Ocean, where the extermination of rats covered about 350 thousand hectares, but only 20-30 people lived in it. Although the rakura is smaller, its population is much larger, so this would be the world’s largest extermination of predators in a populated area, according to Chris Jones of the research institute.
