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Can I get some quiet in here?
Some good news for a change. :) >

There is plenty of good news in conservation, it just gets overshadowed by doom and gloom because negativity gets more clicks. Like most conservation successes, the restoration of native songbirds to these islands is the result of years of humble, quiet, continued efforts by ordinary people making incremental progress. This makes for boring headlines and bad clickbait, so these positive stories rarely leave the local press. >

This is giving me life fuel. >

Huel™️ >

They (NZ govt) have eradicated rodents from a lot of their islands with amazing results. They had to be careful about endemic birds and sometimes captured them before baiting but the results speak for themselves. The largest eradication attempted was Campbell Island at 113 square kilometres and it was successful.  Even Australia has tried it with eradication successful on Macquarie Island and more recently, Lord Howe Island, which is inhabited. >

How did they eradicate rats from such a large area?  Just shitloads of poison? >

Essentially, yes -- helicopters are used to drop rat bait over the entire island. It's definitely the "nuclear option" of predator eradication and requires careful timing & monitoring (and sometimes the temporary capture and relocation of native species that might eat the bait) but it's been proven to work if done correctly. >

This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 84%. (I'm a bot)


Arriving in 1971, pioneering conservation biologist Dr David Towns was there from the start and has captured a lifetime of professional knowledge and personal insights in Ahuahu: A Conservation Journey in Aotearoa New Zealand, published by Canterbury University Press.
A story of triumph and setbacks, of opportunity and innovation, of teamwork and bicultural collaboration, Ahuahu focuses on the Mercury Islands but also references conservation efforts across the country.
Different Mercury Islands required different approaches, in consultation with the Department of Conservation and local iwi such as Ngati Hei, as well as the owners of the larger island Ahuahu, which is partly farmed.


Extended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: conservation^#1 island^#2 New^#3 Zealand^#4 Towns^#5 >

That's amazing news, hopefully more places can be returned to nature as humans flock to cities. >

8/27/72 on a loop >

🤍🤍🤍 >

Upvotes and good energy for all 🤍🙏🏾 >

...is this feeling I'm feeling called hope? >


the government’s Predator Free 2050 programme, which ambitiously aims to clear stoats, rats and possums from Aotearoa New Zealand by 2050.

Curious how they will deal with the inevitable spread of bird diseases because the dead ones are not been eaten. >

Good question! Prior to human settlement, the only terrestrial mammals native to New Zealand were bats. There were still predators and scavengers, but they were birds, insects, and reptiles -- not mammals. The lack of ground-based predators in New Zealand worked just fine for millions of years and is why birds like the Kiwi and Kakapo evolved flightlessness. Unfortunately, since the ecosystem and its wildlife evolved with no mammalian predators, there are no evolutionary defenses against them, so introduced mammals are doing a lot of damage to native species. >

So awesome!