"Both birds cannot fly, which wasn't a problem for millions of years. New Zealand (also known by its Maori name, Aotearoa) had no land mammals aside from bats, so the birds' only predators were raptors that hunt from the sky. That changed when human settlers arrived, first Maori around 700 years ago and then Europeans in the 1800s. They brought mammals with them, predators that had no trouble sniffing out and devouring the ground-dwelling birds."
"To give native birds a chance, New Zealand plans to eliminate invasive predators by 2050, including three species of rats as well as ferrets, weasels and their relatives, stoats. In all, it will mean exterminating millions of animals, the largest invasive species removal project in the world, according to conservation experts. Much of the work is being done with traps, a labor-intensive process that is costly to scale up over vast areas."
Rare New Zealand birds once thought extinct, such as the kakapo and takahe, survive in tiny remnant populations. Both species are flightless and evolved without mammalian predators. Human arrival introduced rats, ferrets, weasels and stoats that prey on ground-dwelling birds, driving declines. More than 80 percent of breeding bird species in New Zealand are now at risk. The country plans to eradicate invasive predators by 2050, targeting three rat species and mustelids, which would require exterminating millions of animals. Much work uses traps, a labor-intensive approach with estimated costs over $100 million per year. New technologies, including AI-enabled automated traps and genetic research, are being pursued, though full eradication may remain uncertain.
Read at www.npr.org
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]