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  • Tags / Keywords bio-security
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House mice on islands: management and lessons from New Zealand
Island and Ocean Ecosystems, BRB
Available Online

Birmingham,C.

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Broome, K.

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Brown, D.

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Brown, K.

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Corson, P.

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Cox, A.

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Golding, C.

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Griffiths, R.

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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.

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Carrion, Victor

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Cruz, Felipe

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Donian, C. Josh

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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. O’Conner, 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 world’s 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, Australia’s 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 island’s 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 island’s 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.
Estimating burdens of neglected tropical zoonotic diseases on islands with introduced mammals
BRB
Available Online

Croll, Donald A.

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Holmes, Nick D.

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Kilpatrick, A. Marm.

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Newton, Kelly M.

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Spatz, Dena R.

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Tershy, Bernie.

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de Wit, Luz A.

2017
Many neglected tropical zoonotic pathogens are maintained by introduced mammals, and on islands the most common introduced species are rodents, cats, and dogs. Management of introduced mammals, including control or eradication of feral populations, which is frequently done for ecological restoration, could also reduce or eliminate the pathogens these animals carry. Understanding the burden of these zoonotic diseases is crucial for quantifying the potential public health benefits of introduced mammal management. However, epidemiological data are only available from a small subset of islands where these introduced mammals co-occur with people. We examined socioeconomic and climatic variables as predictors for disease burdens of angiostrongyliasis, leptospirosis, toxoplasmosis, toxocariasis, and rabies from 57 islands or island countries. We found strong correlates of disease burden for leptospirosis, Toxoplasma gondii infection, angiostrongyliasis, and toxocariasis with more than 50% of the variance explained, and an average of 57% (range = 32–95%) predictive accuracy on out-of-sample data. We used these relationships to provide estimates of leptospirosis incidence and T. gondii seroprevalence infection on islands where nonnative rodents and cats are present. These predicted estimates of disease burden could be used in an initial assessment of whether the costs of managing introduced mammal reservoirs might be less than the costs of perpetual treatment of these diseases on islands.
Potential public health benefits from eradicating rts in New Zealand cities and a tentative research agenda.
BRB
Available Online

Baker, Michael G.

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Blaschke, Paul.

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Mansoor, Osman D.

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McIntyre, Mary.

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Muellner, Petra.

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Wilson, Nick. ? Mary McIntyre ? Paul Blaschke ? Petra Muellner ? Osman D Mansoor ? Michael G Baker

2017
The eradication of some introduced pests such as rats, stoats and possums in New Zealand seems increasingly feasible with successful action to date in various cities (e.g. Wellington City) and with the government’s national 2050 predator-free goal. Here we specifically detail the potential benefits of urban rat eradication and find these cover a wide range of topics including a potentially reduced risk of infection from at least seven zoonotic diseases (e.g. leptospirosis, toxoplasmosis, trichinellosis, murine typhus; and three enteric diseases). Other potential benefits include: psychological benefits from increased native bird life in cities; reduced damage to food supplies; reduced rat damage to building insulation and to building walls and roofing; and reduced fires in buildings associated with rat damage. However, there is considerable uncertainty on the size of such impacts and so we outline a tentative research agenda as a first step towards quantification of the likely key public health benefits of rat eradication.