environment
A rat sighting in New Zealand can trigger an urgent response. Meet the ‘ghostbusters’ hunting them down
Detector teams in Wellington react to ‘intel’ from the public about pest sightings as part of the country’s push to eradicate all introduced predators
TL;DR
- New Zealand aims to eradicate introduced predators by 2050 to save its unique wildlife.
- Pest-catching teams treat every rat sighting as an urgent matter, using detector dogs and other methods to hunt them down.
- Genomic sequencing is used to track the origin of caught pests.
- Community involvement, including public tip-offs, is crucial for the success of eradication projects.
- Eradication efforts have led to a significant increase in native bird populations in areas like Miramar peninsula and Waiheke Island.
- New Zealand's endemic birds evolved without land-based mammal predators, leaving them vulnerable.
- An estimated 25 million native birds are killed annually by introduced predators.