New Zealand to wipe out every last rat
kuontom@kbin.social to 
News@kbin.social – 89 points – 
bbc.com
New Zealand plans to exterminate every last rat, mustelid and possum to save native birds. The government expects the task to be completed by 2050.
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I want native New Zealand birds to succeed but this is very clearly a pipedream goal.
All we have to do is convince "alternative medicine" practitioners that rat tails from NZ cure baldness and make your dick grow. They'll be as extinct as the white rhino in less than a decade.
But common animals provide no super powers when you kill and eat them!
Hey but rats and mustelids and possums are exotic to New Zealand!
Nice theory, but when populations start to run low I guarantee these fuckers will just reintroduce them. We’re not talking about people with a lot of scruples here.
Yeah I think "expects" was the wrong word here. We are not on track for doing it within 100 years let alone 27.
Yeah. They'll eliminate all the rats til the next cargo ship arrives.
We won't eliminate them for even a second. The government doesn't fund its conservation department enough to even eradicate all the possums (which don't arrive in cargo) let alone the rats.
New Zealand is 268,021 square kilometres (103,500 miles), the rats are all through it including the parts that are inaccessible to humans.
It's nice that they are at least trying in some places, like in the article.