When it comes to invasive predators, New Zealand smells a rat — and a stoat, and a possum. But not for long. By 2050, the island nation hopes to be rid of the invasive mammalian predators ...

In what will be a “world first”, New Zealand has announced that it will eradicate all invasive predators in the country by 2050. The amazingly ambitious plan to remove all rats, stoats, and ...

Seeking to safeguard the future of its kiwis, parrots, and hobbits, New Zealand has just made the “world first” decision to eradicate all wild predators by 2050. That means rats, possums ...

New Zealand’s native animals, including flightless birds like the kiwi, evolved without ground-dwelling mammalian predators. That made them vulnerable to the mammals that arrived with European ...

New Zealand’s unique wildlife faces a serious ... bird species that evolved without mammalian predators, ... the cat issue is crucial if New Zealand hopes to achieve its Predator Free 2050 ...

We were after stoats, small carnivorous mammals introduced to New Zealand in the 1870s that are especially deadly to native birds. These animals are lean and lithe with kitten-like faces.

Visitors to New Zealand a millennium ago would have encountered a bona fide "birdtopia"—islands teeming with feathered creatures fluttering through life unaware that mammalian predators existed.

New Zealand split from an ancient supercontinent 85m years ago, long before the ascent of mammals. Without land predators, birds could nest on the ground or do without flying. Image source, Getty ...

New Zealand was once a land of flightless birds like the extinct moa—no terrestrial mammalian predators in sight.

New Zealand split from an ancient supercontinent 85m years ago, long before the ascent of mammals. Without land predators, birds could nest on the ground or do without flying. Getty Images ...

New Zealand was once a land of flightless birds like the extinct moa—no terrestrial mammalian predators in sight.