The common wisdom is that, once an invasive species is really established, it can not be eliminated — but I spoke to the team from Predator Free Wellington, who think they can do just that. ■ Predator Free Wellington: https://www.pfw.org.nz/
Predator Free 2050: https://pf2050.co.nz/
I’ve never heard so much birdsong as inside Zealandia, the fenced-off reserve. The small family of quail in one shot aren’t a New Zealand species, but they were ground-dwelling and adorable enough that I had to include them!
No predators left except the humans who killed the other predators. I don’t have an issue with what they are doing i just have an issue with humans forgetting what we are and acting like it doesn’t count when we kill.
@exotic80 some new suburbs are banning cats and have restrictions on what kind of dog you can own
as a kiwi it astounds me the ridiculous amount of pest the Brits bought over as part of there “naturalisation” of the country…almost everything with 4 legs is an introduced species..although rats are obviously an issue ,no-one really talks about cats…ima cat owner and try to keep it in at night but realise impart of the issue…but we cant say we are predator free truly until domestic pets are also discussed ..
Hi Tom, where did you find the sign off quote from?
@Zachary Seales so part of the rainforest had to be destroyed so you could build a house in the middle of it. You’re the invasive species.
When he started with the “Maōri word roughly translates to….” I did not expect some dope pronunciation. Respect to you Tom for taking the time on everything, even making sure you’re respecting NZ’s native language 🙂
Just poison them for the love of god. Humanity this humanity that, but you are smashing them into bits, so how is poison worse!
moonshots have a maximum of 20% chance to succeed. so its not so bad.
i worry that they’re killing thousands of animals and won’t ever achieve their goal.
What New Zealand needs to do is let private keepers work with their native fauna and set up ark populations outside of their country. In the 90s Crested Geckos were “extinct”. Now they are among the most ubiquitous animals in captivity. I’m starting to see the same kind of thing happening at a smaller scale with blue tree monitors. We never thought they were extinct but they only have about 60-70 square miles of range. One good typhoon could end the species in the wild. The situation is much the same with Aldabra tortoises from the Seychelles. Luckily decades of captive breeding have ensured that they will continue with or without their atoll. If I could work with animals like sphenodons and kiwis and people could keep them as pets I could ensure that no matter what happens in New Zealand these absolutely amazing natural treasures continue on. I think this is especially important with sphenodon. It is the only rhyncocephalian left. We really don’t want to lose them.
I live in rat-free Alberta and I’m grateful our gov’t & residents are so obsessive about rats.
Tom! So glad to see you doing another round of NZ videos. Was out for a work event a week ago at a the Good George pub in Auckland and happened to catch sight of you having dinner. Decided not to intrude, but we hope you had a great time. Come back soon; you have a way of finding new curiosities about our little country that even some of the locals don’t know about.
I wonder if setting sterilized male rats free could help with this issue. There was a test in central america with radiation sterilized mosquitoes and it has reduces the population greatly.
It’d be great if something similar to this would work on rats.
More than a million views in less than 24 hrs good job Tom 😎