New Zealand plans to rid the country of all predatory mammals by 2050

[Deleted]

Another person knowing nothing of NZ wildlife.

You say that but you never commented on the fact that 90% of NZ mammals are not indigenous to begin with

[Techno-Druid]

Cause everytime we mess with the eco we screw it up and i dont have faith that we will be able to do this right without screwing it up even more. Now with animals like cats they can easily be dealt with by spaying and ordering house cats to kept indoors the rest could be rounded up and maybe some could be given up for adoption.

But the other wild predators i feel we should just leave alone and let nature rebalance itself out.

We've undone plenty of our mistakes, intentionally and unintentionally. We brought fallow deer back to Western Europe after they were wiped out at the end of the Pleistocene. We brought wolves back to Yellowstone and horses back to North America.

These species are non-native and invasive. Cats kill thousands of birds in New Zealand, birds that have not evolved to deal with mammalian predators. In fact the only endemic mammals native to NZ are either bats or aquatic.

[Lochton]

To save their native birds and reptiles, which would require spreading millions of tons of poison throughout the country.

Do you think this is a good move for NZ?

Soooooooooooo... They wanna ruin the nature they created, basically, because of birds?

Yeah, no, that is a stupid ass idea.

Might as well put out poison for the human beings too, quite sure they harm birds too in one way or the other.

Might as well stock up on poison to kill the birds 10 years later, when they overpopulate.

[Verdugo]

I hope they get rid of Hobbits first.

[Tiwack]

Good luck! I wouldn't even know where or how to start such a daunting task let alone keeping it that way should it ever be achieved... All it takes is a few blind passengers to cause trouble like how it all started centuries ago. Where there's people there's pests.

[lockedout]

Honestly it sounds like an impossible task but I can understand the reasoning

There is no reasoning, it's ridiculous.

[Milchshake]

I wonder if they would legalize sports hunting for feral cats? I mean in the States some people like to brag about hunting squirrels, raccoons, possums, and coyotes.

Though this proposal is from last year.

“This is the most ambitious conservation project attempted anywhere in the world, but we believe if we all work together as a country we can achieve it,” Key said in a statement, adding that invasive predators have surpassed poaching and deforestation as the biggest threat to New Zealand’s wildlife. Key held a tuatara, a lizardlike native reptile, after announcing the plan, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/40415b2c-5...#axzz4FQe7S3L4.

New Zealand already spends about $40 million a year on invasive species eradication programs, and it’s cleared more than one-third of its 220 islands of predators. But Key suggested Monday that the traps, airdropped poison and fencing already in use haven’t been cutting it. He said $2.3 billion had been devoted to the new plan, some of which would go to a new public-private partnership that would come up with new technologies to defeat the enemies.

For as much as they love their birds, New Zealanders also are quite fond of cats. According to some estimates, the nation has more cat owners per capita than any other. The country’s conservation minister has proposed a household cat limit. In 2013, environmental activist Gareth Morgan suggested hunting down and killing every feral cat in New Zealand (a proposal that, Morgan told The Washington Post, elicited lots of hate mail from Americans.)

“Cats are the major sticking point to a pest-free New Zealand,” James Russell, an ecologist at the University of Auckland, told The Post.

But cats also have a well-placed champion — none other than Prime Minister Key himself.

Key is the owner of a cat named Moonbeam Smokey Fluffy Key, a grayish feline whose “unconditional” love he has praised in Parliament.

And so it was little surprising that Key, when asked by reporters about cats’ place in the Predator Free plan, said house cats — emphasis on house — would be spared. Roaming cats, on the other hand, are on the hit list.

[draynay]

It sounds like a stupid stupid plan. You don't kill one species tosave another. And if one is dying and it is not because of humans? Let them fucking die. That is how evolution works. The strong live, and the weak die.

It is entirely because of humans.

There are no predator mammals endemic to New Zealand. I think they might have insect eating bats.

[shimerra]

There is no reasoning, it's ridiculous.

You being too dense to understand the reasoning doesn't mean there isn't any. Invasive species are bad.

We've undone plenty of our mistakes, intentionally and unintentionally. We brought fallow deer back to Western Europe after they were wiped out at the end of the Pleistocene. We brought wolves back to Yellowstone and horses back to North America.

These species are non-native and invasive. Cats kill thousands of birds in New Zealand, birds that have not evolved to deal with mammalian predators. In fact the only endemic mammals native to NZ are either bats or aquatic.

Ummmm horses aren't native to North America and are a horrible blight on a great many native species. Particularly in my home state big horn sheep are directly hurt because of horses on top of other smaller animals that depend on the vegetation they destroy. The current bastard breed of horse isn't the type of horse that existed 12,000 years ago on the continent.

[Nitros14]

Good, any complaints those predators might have at being killed would be the highest form of hypocrisy considering they murder things almost every day of their lives.

[Shinrael]

For millions and millions of years, nature has raised and felled countless animal species. Sooo many species we've never even heard about, we've never known about. Who saved those? You know, just because a species becomes extict doesn't mean it's a bad thing. I mean, from our viewpoint, it might look bad, but it might be better for the planet? Ofc, that is far-fetched, but if the predators in New Zealand are native to it (now, if they were brought there by humans and that caused the danger of extinction of non-predators, then it's okay), then Nature willed it so. Millions of years of evolution gave birth to humans. And another few millions of years might give birth to something even more fascinating. But if humans continue messing around with Nature, then it might not work. Human is the only animal that performs illogical actions. Actions that were not programmed in their instincts when first created. So we have to be careful not to mess things up and break the logical order of things. Species come and go. It's part of the cycle/evolution.


Other than that, I am not against preserving these species using different methods (like creating a special predatorless park or something) but saving a few species at the cost of millions of animals' lives.... it brings a question to my mind: what exactly are you trying to protect?

[Mormolyce]

To be clear, they are talking about introduced predators, that prey on native fauna. This is already a problem in Australia and New Zealand that we've been trying to solve with culls for decades.

It's good to see the New Zealand government taking the initiative to eliminate invasive predators.

Like humans?

[shimerra]

Other than that, I am not against preserving these species using different methods (like creating a special predatorless park or something) but saving a few species at the cost of millions of animals' lives.... it brings a question to my mind: what exactly are you trying to protect?

Think about it for two seconds. It's an easy answer. These animals are wiping out billions of animals because they're predators with no competition in a world where all the food's defenseless. In some places invasive species are completely destabilizing the local ecology.

[Shadowspire]

Things have to die, sometimes by other things

If you want to save a species or grow one,do like China or the Bible and make them fuck

[Mormolyce]

That is without doubt the stupidiest idea since the Aussies decided to introduce Cane toads to the local population!!

We certainly do not have a good track record on this.

[Shinrael]

Think about it for two seconds. It's an easy answer. These animals are wiping out billions of animals because they're predators with no competition in a world where all the food's defenseless. In some places invasive species are completely destabilizing the local ecology.

And completely wiping out one species to preserve another species is the answer you came up with after thinking for two seconds? It's an easy answer because you didn't put effort to come up with a better one.

Massacre is not the solution. Move them somewhere, eat the predators (and stop eating the nonpredators). Separate them in different parks or something. Not complete extermination. Such a waste of resources. Atleast make use of them.

[Taus]

The vast majority of this thread are people opining on something they know nothing about and imposing their own context to a place they clearly have never been to, let alone understanding the scientific nuance of that particular place. There aren't many places like New Zealand in the world, and if you feel like you know better, having been there I can say emphatically that it's impossible to have even a pedestrian grasp on the ecosystem without being there.

[draynay]

What use are a bunch of invasive pests? You want to round them up and make weasel-possum stew? Sounds like a lot of work for little reward.

[Deleted]

Its screwing with ecology and the natural order of things. Predatory animals need to hunt pray, if you prevent that, the pray animals grow to overwhelming size and are even more harder to control.

A majority of the predators are probably invasive species brought in by the British colonials. And cats. They’re not actually gonna exterminate the natural order.

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And completely wiping out one species to preserve another species is the answer you came up with after thinking for two seconds? It's an easy answer because you didn't put effort to come up with a better one.

Massacre is not the solution. Move them somewhere, eat the predators (and stop eating the nonpredators). Separate them in different parks or something. Not complete extermination. Such a waste of resources. Atleast make use of them.

Did you even watch the video? You want to EAT possums? Wild rats? Cats!?
Move them elsewhere? And then what? Nobody’s eating the prey animals but the predatory animals you imbecile. They’re fucking endangered species of ground bound birds, reptiles and so no that haven’t evolved with mammalian predators.

[Shinrael]

A majority of the predators are probably invasive species brought in by the British colonials. And cats. They’re not actually gonna exterminate the natural order.

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Did you even watch the video? You want to EAT possums? Wild rats? Cats!?
Move them elsewhere? And then what? Nobody’s eating the prey animals but the predatory animals you imbecile. They’re fucking endangered species of ground bound birds, reptiles and so no that haven’t evolved with mammalian predators.

Ye, I watched the video. They can use the rats for experiments, they can take the possums' fur. They can give the cats as pets in other country or create some big cat zoopark. Some of the predators, can be eaten. Not all of them, you... what was it, imbecile? Ye, please, watch your tongue, sir.

Isn't them not having evolved a sign that nature doesn't need them? As I already said, it's part of evolution.