Predator-Free New Zealand is a topic that most New Zealanders are familiar with. Here is the story of how and why we got here.
To the casual visitor New Zealand is an idyllic paradise with rugged coastline, beautiful beaches, tall mountains and volcanoes. However, a closer inspection and understanding of the country reveals a much different story. New Zealand is a beautiful country full of unique species and dramatic landscapes, but it is also one that has been drastically altered by people and many of its unique species are at great peril. Fortunately, enough people in New Zealand are aware of this and are working tirelessly to protect those special species. A predator-free movement is underway in the country with hopes of keeping those species that make New Zealand, New Zealand. The predator-free movement started from humble beginnings and now is a behemoth working in all aspects of the country.
New Zealand’s Endemic Species Under Threat Of Extinction
For nearly 85 million years the islands of New Zealand have been isolated from other land masses and it was one of the last places in the world to be settled by people (around the year 1250). That extended period of isolation coupled with a lack of mammalian predators (the only mammals were 3 species of bats) allowed the animals that managed to colonise the country to evolve into unique forms.
The arrival of the first people brought huge changes to the islands. As more people came to New Zealand in ever greater numbers in the 1800s, they brought more and more mammals with them, some of which (such as rats, stoats, and possums) caused serious destruction to native species. Many native species became extinct and many more are now at risk of becoming extinct and likely would disappear without help.
A Brief History Of Predator Free Areas in New Zealand
First Predator Free Island – 1964
In the early 1900s there were a few people that began to be aware of the horrific damage that introduced species were having on the country. The first time that an effort was undertaken to remove all rats from an island was on tiny Maria or Ruapuke island in the Hauraki Gulf in the 1960s.
A local used to visit the island to see the bird life. On one visit he noticed that most of the birds had been killed off by rats, so he and some friends returned to the island armed with heaps of rat poison. They proceeded to spread poison and over a few years managed to wipe out all the rats on the island, marking the first time that a predator was completely removed from an island.
More and Larger Predator-Free Islands
Over time, people and the government began to take the same approach to other islands, removing mammalian predators from more and more islands. The islands became larger and larger. Now there have been over 100 islands that have had predators removed from them.
Predator-free islands can be found all around the main islands of New Zealand. Some of them never had predators and others have had the predators removed from them. In either case, they now serve as precious reserves where endangered species that have been wiped out on the main land or elsewhere can still survive.
Some of the predator-free islands can’t be visited, but others welcome visitors and offer a glimpse of what New Zealand was like pre-people. Here are 6 must visit predator-free islands.
Mainland Eco – Sanctuaries
As time went by people learned a lot about how to remove predators from an area through a combination of poison and traps. For years the focus was on removing predators from islands, but someone came up with the idea of creating a predator-free sanctuary on the main islands of New Zealand. The only way to make this possible was to design and build a large predator proof fence to enclose an area. Then all the predators inside would be removed and the fence would keep others from reinvading.
The first mainland eco-sanctuary in New Zealand with a predator proof fence was Zealandia in 1994. Since that initial groundbreaking work there are now eco-sanctuaries all across the country that employ a predator proof fence. Here are 5 predator free eco-sanctuaries to visit.
Large Landscape Scale Predator Free Area
All of the previous efforts from that first tiny 2 hectare island to the mainland eco-sanctuaries have brought us to where we are now – large landscape scale predator-free areas without fences. Back in the year 2016 the New Zealand government made the bold move of declaring that the country would be predator-free by the year 2050.
That goal would have seemed preposterous to someone 20 years ago. Even now, many people question whether or not we can possibly achieve that goal. Since that goal was adopted people have begun tackling it with a vengeance, volunteering to check traps in local reserves and in their backyard. Companies are developing new technologies to humanely remove and keep out predators. It’s almost as if the country has gone to war to remove these predators because people realise that these predators will destroy those unique species that make New Zealand so special if we do nothing.
To be successful at a landscape-scale the area will first require eradicating all the predators. Once that is accomplished, the next step is to work to prevent reinvasion from the surrounding area. As you can see this is a huge challenge, but one people are facing head on.
There are now several large landscape-scale projects underway across the country including Hawkes Bay, Taranaki, Dunedin, Rakiura/Stewart Island, and the Perth Valley in the South-Westland.