Stoat in New Zealand

Immediately before human settlement, New Zealand did not have any land-based mammals apart from bats, but Polynesian and European settlers introduced a wide variety of animals.

[1] The rabbit was introduced by European settlers as a food and game animal, and by the 1870s it was becoming a serious threat to the newly developed farming economy.

[3] The translocation efforts of New Zealand's pioneering conservationist Richard Henry were undone when stoats swam to Resolution Island.

[4] In December 2010, a stoat was seen on what was thought to be the stoat-free Kapiti Island, and by August the next year the New Zealand Department of Conservation had managed to remove three.

[4] New Zealand has a high proportion of ground-nesting and flightless birds, due to its long geographical isolation and a lack of mammal predators.

[12] In August 2022 a single male stoat managed to swim to Chalky Island, an important refuge and breeding ground of the critically endangered kākāpō parrot.

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