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Tags / Keywords ias-management piln management-actions red-deer secretary-island new-zealand
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On the verge of a biological crisis: the state of invasive species in the Pacific

Island and Ocean Ecosystems, BRB

Available Online

Cas Vanderwoude

2014

A report prepared by the Invasive Partnership for the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting, Palau July 2014 as requested by the Micronesian Chief Executives in Resolution 19-01

Eradication of red deer from Secretary Island, New Zealand: changing tactics to achieve success

Island and Ocean Ecosystems

Available Online

Edge, K.A.

Macdonald, N.

Nugent, G.

Parkes, J.P.

2019

Red deer (Cervus elaphus) established on 8,140 ha Secretary Island after swimming from the mainland in the early 1960s. Attempts to remove them began in the 1970s and after several starts and stops they were eradicated in late 2014. Since late 2006, 688 deer have been removed. Ground hunters killed 365 deer in 1,827 hunter-days, 320 deer were shot from helicopters in 211 ?ying-hours, two deer were trapped and one was known to have been killed by a ?sherman. The campaign since 2006 was planned in three phases an initial population reduction, a mop-up phase and a surveillance and rapid response to any new immigration phase. An initial reduction of 80% of the population, between 530 and 550 in 2006, was planned and achieved in the ?rst two years. The removal of surviving deer was planned to take a further four years but despite 114 being shot and probably less than 14 deer remaining in 2013 eradication was not achieved using the methods that succeeded in the initial phase. The change in tactics in 2014 that allowed for eradication was to (a) ground survey the island and use camera traps to locate areas with deer, (b) identify individual deer from faecal DNA to estimate numbers, know when they were shot or still alive, and to estimate potential new immigration from the mainland which was low, and (c) move from individual hunters seeking any deer within a widespread population, when about 10% of hunter-deer encounters led to a kill, to re-train hunters as teams using GPS/radio systems and integrate them with aerial hunting to seek individual deer at known locations, when 100% of encounters led to a kill. The change of tactics that led to eradication success required about half the costs, i.e. $25,000 to $10,500 per deer direct operational costs, expected if no change had been made.

ias-management piln management-actions red-deer secretary-island new-zealand

House mice on islands: management and lessons from New Zealand

Island and Ocean Ecosystems, BRB

Available Online

Birmingham,C.

Broome, K.

Brown, D.

Brown, K.

Corson, P.

Cox, A.

Golding, C.

Griffiths, R.

Murphy, E.

2019

The impacts of house mice (Mus musculus), one of four invasive rodent species in New Zealand, are only clearly revealed on islands and fenced sanctuaries without rats and other invasive predators which suppress mouse populations, influence their behaviour, and confound their impacts. When the sole invasive mammal on islands, mice can reach high densities and influence ecosystems in similar ways to rats. Eradicating mice from islands is not as difficult as previously thought, if best practice techniques developed and refined in New Zealand are applied in association with diligent planning and implementation. Adopting this best practice approach has resulted in successful eradication of mice from several islands in New Zealand and elsewhere including some of the largest ever targeted for mice; in multi-species eradications; and where mouse populations were still expanding after recent invasion. Prevention of mice reaching rodent-free islands remains an ongoing challenge as they are inveterate stowaways, potentially better swimmers than currently thought, and prolific breeders in predator-free habitat. However, emergent mouse populations can be detected with conventional surveillance tools and eradicated before becoming fully established if decisive action is taken early enough. The invasion and eventual eradication of mice on Maud Island provides a case study to illustrate New Zealand-based lessons around mouse biosecurity and eradication.

Archipelago-wide island restoration in the Galapagos Islands: Reducing costs of invaisve mammal eradication programs and reinvasion risk

BRB

Available Online

Campbell, Karl J.

Carrion, Victor

Cruz, Felipe

Donian, C. Josh

Lavoie, Christian

2011

Invasive alien mammals are the major driver of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation on islands. Over the past three decades, invasive mammal eradication from islands has become one of society's most powerful tools for preventing extinction of insular endemics and restoring insular ecosystems. As practitioners tackle larger islands for restoration, three factors will heavily influence success and outcomes: the degree of local support, the ability to mitigate for non-target impacts, and the ability to eradicate non-native species more cost-effectively. Investments in removing invasive species, however, must be weighed against the risk of reintroduction. One way to reduce reintroduction risks is to eradicate the target invasive species from an entire archipelago, and thus eliminate readily available sources. We illustrate the costs and benefits of this approach with the efforts to remove invasive goats from the Galápagos Islands. Project Isabela, the world's largest island restoration effort to date, removed > 140,000 goats from > 500,000 ha for a cost of US$10.5 million. Leveraging the capacity built during Project Isabela, and given that goat reintroductions have been common over the past decade, we implemented an archipelago-wide goat eradication strategy. Feral goats remain on three islands in the archipelago, and removal efforts are underway. Efforts on the Galápagos Islands demonstrate that for some species, island size is no longer the limiting factor with respect to eradication. Rather, bureaucratic processes, financing, political will, and stakeholder approval appear to be the new challenges. Eradication efforts have delivered a suite of biodiversity benefits that are in the process of revealing themselves. The costs of rectifying intentional reintroductions are high in terms of financial and human resources. Reducing the archipelago-wide goat density to low levels is a technical approach to reducing reintroduction risk in the short-term, and is being complemented with a longer-term social approach focused on education and governance.

Zero-tolerance biosecurity protects high-conservation-value island nature reserve.

BRB

Available Online

Scott,John K. McKirdy, Simon J. van der Merwe, Johann Green, Roy Burbidge, Andrew A. Pickles, Greg Hardie,Darryl C. Morris, Keith Kendrick, Peter G. Thomas, Melissa L. Horton, Kristin L. OConner, Simon Downs, Justin Stoklosa, Richard Lagdon, Russell Marks, Barbara Naim, Malcolm Mengersen, Kerrie

2017

Barrow Island, north-west coast of Australia, is one of the worlds significant conservation areas, harboring marsupials that have become extinct or threatened on mainland Australia as well as a rich diversity of plants and animals, some endemic. Access to construct a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plant, Australias largest infrastructure development, on the island was conditional on no non-indigenous species (NIS) becoming established. We developed a comprehensive biosecurity system to protect the islands biodiversity. From 2009 to 2015 more than 0.5 million passengers and 12.2 million tonnes of freight were transported to the island under the biosecurity system, requiring 1.5 million hrs of inspections. No establishments of NIS were detected. We made four observations that will assist development of biosecurity systems. Firstly, the frequency of detections of organisms corresponded best to a mixture log-normal distribution including the high number of zero inspections and extreme values involving rare incursions. Secondly, comprehensive knowledge of the islands biota allowed estimation of false positive detections (62% native species). Thirdly, detections at the border did not predict incursions on the island. Fourthly, the workforce detected more than half post-border incursions (59%). Similar approaches can and should be implemented for all areas of significant conservation value.