Rodent management in Aotearoa New Zealand: approaches and challenges to landscape-scale control.

Aotearoa-New Zealand has only four rodent species, all introduced. In order of arrival, they are Pacific rat Rattus exulans, brown rat R. norvegicus, house mouse Mus musculus, and black rat R.

Invasive Urban Mammalian Predators: Distribution and Multi-Scale Habitat Selection.

A barrier to successful ecological restoration of urban green spaces in many cities is invasive mammalian predators. We determined the fine- and landscape-scale habitat characteristics associated with the presence of five urban predators (black and brown rats, European hedgehogs, house mice, and brushtail possums) in three New Zealand cities, in spring and autumn, in three green space types: forest fragments, amenity parks, and residential gardens. Season contributed to variations in detections for all five taxa.

Predator-Free New Zealand: Conservation Country.

Eradications of invasive species from over 1000 small islands around the world have created conservation arks, but to truly address the threat of invasive species to islands, eradications must be scaled by orders of magnitude. New Zealand has eradicated invasive predators from 10% of its offshore island area and now proposes a vision to eliminate them from the entire country. We review current knowledge of invasive predator ecology and control technologies in New Zealand and the biological research, technological advances, social capacity and enabling policy required.

Traits influencing range contraction in New Zealand's endemic forest birds.

Understanding vulnerability of endemic taxa to predation is clearly important for conservation management. In New Zealand, predation by introduced mammals such as rats and mustelids is widely recognized as the primary factor responsible for declines of indigenous fauna. The aim of our study was to evaluate the vulnerability of New Zealand's surviving endemic forest bird species to impacts of introduced mammalian predators, and identify key life history attributes underlying this vulnerability.