We wish that we didn’t have to kill introduced predators. But in Aotearoa we face a stark choice – dead predators or dead forests?
Aotearoa’s ngahere are a unique taonga that define our whanau. If we lose our forests, we lose our mana, we lose our kiwi-ness. ‘We must’ is more important to BHMET more than ‘we wish’.
This cute little brush-tailed possum eats 4kg of vegetation every single night. They particularly love shoots and buds. Totara are their favourite… As you walk along the Glory Track you’ll see dozens of large, dead totara. These were killed pre-2008 by possum browse.
If it was just the vegetation possums would be bad enough. But they’re omnivores and like to snack on native eggs and chicks. Possums are devastating to indigenous biodiversity
Uncontrolled, Motupōhue would support a population of 5,000+ possums! That’s 35 tonnes of native vegetation every night. That’s a lot of carbon that the forest isn’t storing any more.
Dead possums or dead forests?
Rats are smart, agile and breed like… rats! Although an individual rat doesn’t cause as much damage as a possum, rat populations can explode quickly. Collectively, rats are a major cause of biodiversity loss.
Their primary diet is fruits, seeds and vegetation but when there is a ‘mast’ or heavy seeding year, rat populations rise sharply… and when the easy food runs out, they turn on native chicks and eggs. Once those are gone, the excess rat population starves.
The challenge on Motupōhue is that rats love humans and they share our homes adapting quickly to new sources of food. But when the young rats leave home, they head for the hill.
Dead rats or dead forests?
Stoats and weasels (part of the mustelid family) are extreme carnivores. They were introduced from northern European forests where they had evolved to cope with long winters.
In their native habitat they would be stashing carcasses to eat during the winter. Here in Aotearoa, food is available year-round, but they still kill constantly; far more than they need to survive.
They prey on native birds, particularly those species that nest in burrows and tree hollows. Stoats in particular are fearless and native birds are defenceless. Stoats will kill kiwi, kea and kaka chicks in front of their parents.
Dead mustelids or dead forests?