“This is a massive project,” says Stephen Horn, of a plan to eradicate introduced pests from Auckland Island/Maukahuka. The manager of the Department of Conservation’s national eradication team says that’s something a feasibility project, published in 2021, unearthed – “that the scale is enormous, and it’s complex”.
The scale and complexity translates into eight years and $80 million. It’s a project now being actively fundraised for by NZ Nature Fund, which signed an agreement with the department (DoC) in September.
In New Zealand’s subantarctic region, goats were culled from Auckland Island in 1991, mice and rabbits from nearby Enderby in 1993, rats were eradicated from Campbell Island in 2001, and mice from Antipodes Island in 2014. Removing the last pig, cat and mouse from Auckland Island would be the “last piece of the puzzle” for a pest-free subantarctics, Invercargill-based Horn says.
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