an unusual endemic insect<\/a>. The difference lies in the smell \u2013 w\u0113t\u0101 poo \u201csmells like nutmeg, spicy\u201d; rat poo smells \u201cquite pooey\u201d, Wisker says.<\/p>\nA dog detector team is then sent out to sniff out signs of rats, followed by the \u201ccapture team\u201d who sets up cameras, traps and bait. When they find the rat \u2013 and they almost always do \u2013 it is promptly sent off for genomic sequencing, to determine if it is local or has travelled into the region.<\/p>\n
In Hall\u2019s case, they had success. The intruder was a \u201cgiant rat\u201d, 529 grams heavy and 495mm long with a meaty tail and piebald coat. The Norway rat \u2013 a species that arrived in New Zealand on European ships in the 1700s \u2013 was one of the largest the Wellington team had caught.<\/p>\n
A large introduced Norway rat, discovered in the garden of a home in Hataitai, Wellington. Photograph: Predator Free Wellington<\/p>\n
A similar response plays out if a stoat is spotted on Waiheke Island, in Auckland\u2019s Hauraki gulf, where just a few remain, and again for possums in Akaroa, near Christchurch, and Otago Peninsula in Dunedin, where they have been eliminated.<\/p>\n
In regions where eradication efforts have been successful, or are close to it, locally run predator-free projects are increasingly relying on residents to call in tip-offs to their \u201chotlines\u201d when they see, or suspect, a predator has returned.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we can activate those 20,000 sets of eyes and ears that are a community \u2013 or the 212,000 eyes and ears living in Wellington city \u2013 then we\u2019ve got the most sensitive detection network anywhere in the world,\u201d Willcocks says. <\/p>\n
Who ya gonna call? 0800 NO RATS<\/p>\n
New Zealand\u2019s only endemic mammal species are bats and marine mammals. Subsequently, its birds evolved in unusual ways \u2013 the country is home to more species of flightless birds, both living and extinct, than any other place in the world.<\/p>\n
Isolation from land-based mammals left the country\u2019s birds largely defenceless against introduced predators. An estimated 25m native birds are killed annually by rats, stoats, possums, and cats, and 50 bird species have gone extinct, according to the Department of Conservation.<\/p>\n
Predator Free Wellington has, over 10 years, managed to eradicate rats from Miramar peninsula, a 15-minute drive from the city centre. Now it is in phase two of its project \u2013 elimination in a number of nearby suburbs before it expands further into the city.<\/p>\n
It has achieved this through extensive trapping and monitoring networks, a large volunteer workforce, widespread community buy-in and now, residents calling 0800 NO RATS when they see a pest.<\/p>\n
Since the project began in Wellington, the population of native birds on Miramar peninsula has increased by 500%. In Waiheke, populations have increased by 99% since 2020.<\/p>\n
Still, the teams refuse to become complacent. Rats can breed multiple times a year and catching a single interloper early can stop it re-establishing a population. Expert dog handler Sally Bain is one of the rat-catchers.<\/p>\n
On the Miramar peninsula, she scours the coastline for signs of rats, with her two highly trained dogs, Kimi and Rapu, who lead with their noses to the air.<\/p>\n
A rat was recently discovered in a rat trap here, prompting a search of the area. Close to a small construction site, the dogs become animated. Rats regularly hide in cars, cabins and construction materials, Bain says, and the dogs\u2019 interest in the site could either signal there are more rats hiding there, or this was where the dead rat had originated.<\/p>\n
A member of the Predator Free Wellington rat eradication team. Local conservation groups in New Zealand are increasingly relying on residents to call in sightings of sole predators. Photograph: Tim Sutton\/Predator Free Wellington<\/p>\n
Stamping out rats in a city of people is no small task. Day after day, Bain traverses Wellington\u2019s tricky hilly terrain hunting them down. When asked what drives her, Bain says: \u201cHumans weren\u2019t the only ones who suffered when we turned up here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about what you save, not what you kill.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Wellington residents like Hall, those efforts and the wider buy-in from the community \u2013 from building and setting traps to keeping their eyes open for rats \u2013 have been \u201cremarkably successful\u201d.<\/p>\n
He says: \u201cWe\u2019ve got kerer\u016b \u2026 pooping on people\u2019s cars and sitting on powerlines, a family of k\u0101k\u0101 who live in the area and chase each other around. All these native birds have come back and getting rid of the rats means they get to stay.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In many places around the world, discovering a rat in your garden would barely register a second thought.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":741755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-741754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=741754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/741755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=741754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=741754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=741754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}