WELLINGTON, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) -- This year's "Battle for our Birds" pest control operations are now underway in New Zealand to protect the country's most vulnerable native wildlife from the scourge of rats and stoats fuelled by widespread forest seeding.
Conservation Minister Maggie Barry made the statement on Tuesday, saying that work at 34 sites covering more than 800,000 hectares of high value conservation land has begun, and Department of Conservation field staff are monitoring another seven sites to see if rodents are at damaging levels.
Barry said in a release that staff will be using aerial 1080, the aerial poisoning, at around 29 sites to knock down rat, possum and stoat numbers, and using traps and other ground-based methods at other more accessible sites.
About 25 million native birds are killed each year by predators like possums, rats and stoats, according to the department.
"Battle for our Birds" will protect a dozen priority species of birds, bats, frogs, lizards and snails at risk of serious decline or local extinction and the predator control will also benefit many common native species and whole ecosystems, Barry said.
The operation supports the government's ambitious Predator Free 2050 goal by controlling predators over large areas, and also contributes to the interim goal to suppress rats, stoats and possums over a further million hectares by 2025, according to the minister.
