Our natural environment: easy prey for predators
New Zealand's unique flora and fauna is highly vulnerable: it evolved over 80 million years with no browsing or predatory mammals.
So it's hardly surprising that introduced mammalian pests - brought here either to be domesticated, by accident, for hunting, for the fur trade or to control other introduced pests - have driven some of our most vulnerable species to the brink of extinction.
Possum feasts on egg (Source: Nga Manu Images)
Killers of the night
Possums, rats, ferrets, stoats and feral cats all kill both adult birds and chicks and raid nests for eggs.8 They also compete for, and wipe out, critical food sources for birds such as supplies of berries, flowers, fruits and invertebrates. Predators are blamed for an estimated 61% (26,628,940) of chick and egg losses every year.9
These predators prey on native species that are:
- in immediate danger of extinction: mohua, southern New Zealand dotteral and kakariki
- acutely threatened: rowi/okarito brown kiwi, kaka and North Island kokako
- nationally critical: several species of giant New Zealand snail, Powelliphanta, and
- common species: tui, bellbird, fantail and whitehead.10
Introduced pests have also devastated our forest canopy and stripped vast tracts of native bush. Rata, kamahi, pohutukawa, mistletoe and fuchsia are particularly badly affected.11
Aerial 1080
It is our unique lack of native land mammals than enables New Zealand to use 1080 aerially, and this has now become a vital tool in the battle to control introduced pests and protect New Zealand's native species. There have been numerous examples of highly successful operations involving the threatened species listed above (see the Case Studies section for some examples).
The 'triple predator' benefit
Aerial 1080 operations involving pre-feeding of baits are also increasingly reliable in achieving high kills not only of possums but also rats and stoats via secondary poisioning. This 'triple hit' of the three major bird predators over a large area provides a breeding 'window' for the following season that is crucial to increasing female and chick survival.
SUPPORTING ORGANISATIONS
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