Predator Free 2050: New Zealand ramps up plan to purge all pests

[Thyla]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48702762

"Wake up in paradise" is New Zealand's proud boast. It has a rightful swagger: its turquoise glacial lakes are ringed by untouched mountain ranges, while historic Māori sites speak of a people at one with the natural world.
But there are stains on the environment. In this corner of the South Pacific, waterways are increasingly polluted and, from the suburbs to the alpine peaks, an untold army of feral pests is running amok, putting about 80% of New Zealand's bird species at the risk of extinction.

It's four years since the former prime minister John Key set a goal of eradicating stoats, rats and possums by mid-century in arguably the world's most ambitious bio-diversity fight-back.
"It is a massive project but it is starting to track really well," Brent Beavan, the programme manager for Predator Free 2050, told the BBC. "Over the next five years I think you'll see that momentum accelerate and then we'll start stepping into some really large-scale programmes."

*snip*

"What has changed is the main-streaming of this movement," she explained to the BBC.
"It is now becoming something that we all do and we all have bought into this vision of removing predators from New Zealand. In Wellington [the capital] there is now not a suburb within the city that doesn't have a predator-free community, and that's pretty massive."

*snip*

New Zealand has made a very clear choice to value indigenous animals above those imported by European settlers, and others.
"I do not think that we love killing animals, but the situation is that our really unique native species simply cannot co-exist with some of these introduced predators," said Sky Davies, the manager of the Tasman Environmental Trust.

More at the link which slightly covers more details, it's a soft introduction to an often overlooked issue but there is still a lot to take in at the same time. This is also a massive problem in Australia and elsewhere, I only hope we can save as much as we can because soon it will be too late.

[Phoenix61]

1. Feral pigs in Hawaii are causing massive problems. nt

[Thyla]

4. Pigs can be real bad

and often carry disease making them no good for food.
NZ has them too.

[GeorgeGist]

2. Does that include billionaire assholes?

[NickB79]

3. Wonder how they're going to deal with pet cats and dogs?

A few farm cats can breed to epic numbers in a few years with ample food sources.

[Thyla]

5. Pet dogs are not so much an issue as people have to actually look after them

It's when they go wild like in Australia they become a big problem, as well as killing wildlife they are interbreeding with the dingos and leaving less and less pure breeds left.
Cats don't care though, pets or feral they are killing machines and are probably one of the biggest threats to native species there is.
I believe some councils in NZ are trialing placing bans on cat ownership and some places in Australia are looking to ban cats from going outdoors and mandatory neutering. All a bit late really.