Balance of nature: New Zealanad fights back (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, July 25, 2016, 23:44 (3042 days ago) @ David Turell

Both New Zealand and Australia are over run by feral animals brought to the two countries by settlers. they now regret it as native animals and birds are being lost:-https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2016/07/25/new-zealand-plans-to-kill-every-weasel-rat-and-feral-cat-on-its-soil/?wpisrc=nl_evening&wpmm=1-"New Zealand is a nation that takes its birds seriously, and it's got very special ones. The country's currency is adorned with images of winged species found nowhere else, including the yellow-eyed penguin and the black-masked kokako. The logo of the national air force is stamped with the famed kiwi — a chicken-sized puff of feathers that cannot fly.-"But many of those birds and other native wildlife are under assault from species that showed up with settlers to the island nation 200 years ago. And on Monday, Prime Minister John Key announced that, generations after they came, the invaders would have to go.-"New Zealand, he said, has adopted the “ambitious goal” of eradicating its soil of rats, possums, stoats and all other invasive mammals by 2050. The name of the plan: Predator Free New Zealand.-***-"This isn't the first time New Zealanders have contemplated the idea of a full wipeout of introduced predators, which the government says kill 25 million native birds a year and spread diseases to cattle and deer.-***-And in Australia:-https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/07/16/australia-actually-declares-war-on-cats-plans-to-kill-2-million-by-2020/?tid=a_inl-"The Australian government announced plans to cull up to 2 million feral cats by 2020 in a bid to preserve dozens of native species that authorities claim face extinction because of the cats' predatory behavior.-***-"The animals were introduced to the Antipodes about 200 years ago by European settlers and bred and spread rapidly across the Australian continent and New Zealand. According to one estimate, the roughly 20 million cats in Australia kill roughly 75 million native animals a day.-"According to Britain's Guardian newspaper, Australia has one of the worst extinction records in the world, losing about 29 native mammal species since the European arrival. It now lists some 1,800 species as under threat.-***-"It's very important to emphasize, too, that we don't hate cats," cautioned Andrews, the threatened-species commissioner. "We just can't tolerate the damage that they're doing anymore to our wildlife.'"-Comment: Balance in nature is really balanced until it is upset.