The programme's focus is to eradicate pests and translocate native species.

[2] It was first charted by Captain James Cook in 1773, and was a base for sealers in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

[4] Other threatened endemic birds transferred to the island since the eradication of stoats include tieke (saddleback), mōhua (yellowhead), little spotted kiwi, and orange-fronted kākāriki.

New Zealand's Department of Conservation (DOC) deemed it a major threat to the island's kākāpō and launched a massive operation to eradicate it, involving trapping experts, dogs, trail cameras, helicopters and boats.

The operation cost nearly half a million NZ dollars (around US$300,000) and took eight months before the stoat was finally trapped and killed.