New Zealand Eradicates Invasive Mice From Antipodes Islands 
 
 Enlarge this image toggle caption Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons 
 
 The Antipodes had a mouse problem. But no more. 
 
 New Zealand, which owns the subantarctic archipelago, says its years-long effort to rid the rodents has finally paid off. 
 
 "This is huge news for conservation both in New Zealand and internationally," said conservation minister Eugenie Sage. 
 
 The Antipodes Islands, a World Heritage Site located about 470 miles south of the southern tip of New Zealand's South Island, once had a major infestation – some 200,000 mice "preyed on bird chicks and eggs, invertebrates, and plants," The New Zealand Herald says. 
 
 The government says the mice are the only mammalian pest species on the remote islands and that were "likely accidentally introduced in 1893 from a ship wreck or one of the many [seal hunting] gangs." 
 
 To reverse the infestation, in 2014 Wellington launched the "Million Dollar Mouse" project to raise funds to rid the islands of mice. The New Zealand public kicked in $250,000, WWF NZ provided another $100,000, and the Morgan Foundation matched donations dollar for dollar. The rest of the funding came from New Zealand's Department of Conservation, the Herald said. 
 
 The newspaper writes: "The five-year project involved preparations and hut repairs, a helicopter bait-drop in June 2016, and post-eradication monitoring by just-returned teams that searched the island for a month and found no sign of mice." 
 
 "The subantarctic islands are remote, but the role they play in global conservation as the home for so many unique species can't be overstated," Department of Conservation project manager Stephen Horn said. 
 
 Twenty-one species of breeding seabirds – including the majestic but critically endangered Antipodean wandering albatross, as well as more than 150 species of insects — nearly one in five unique to the islands — will be among the beneficiaries of the the successful eradication project, Sage said. 
 
 Since the 1990s, New Zealand has steadily made progress on clearing invasive species from its subantarctic islands – including the removal of rats, mice, rabbits, cats goats and stoats (a small, carnivorous weasel). 
 
 In 2016, the country announced an ambitious plan to eliminate all such invasive species from New Zealand by 2050. 
 
 According to National Geographic, "By 2025, the New Zealand government hopes to suppress or remove invasive predators from an additional 2.5 million acres (one million hectares) of land—and completely remove all introduced predators from the country's island nature reserves. The government hopes to finish the job by 2050 largely through the widespread use of traps and poisoned bait, though New Zealand is ready to innovate: It's a world leader in developing new ways to eradicate invasive mammals." ||||| Antipodes Island has been cleared of its estimated 200,000-strong mouse population. 
 
 Photo: RNZ/Ian Telfer 
 
 Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage has declared the island officially mouse free. 
 
 Mice arrived on Antipodes Island, 820km southeast of New Zealand, on shipwrecks and sealing ships in the 1800s. 
 
 Since then they have wiped out two species of insect and pushed some sea birds to breed on nearby pest-free islands. 
 
 Photo: wikipedia 
 
 A $4 million project to get rid of the mice started in 2014. Eradication work got underway in 2016. 
 
 Ms Sage said a Department of Conservation team spent a month searching the island for rodents and returned to Dunedin yesterday announcing they had found none. 
 
 "This is huge news for conservation both in New Zealand and internationally," Ms Sage said. 
 
 Ms Sage said 21 species of breeding sea bird, four unique land birds, and more than 150 species of insect were found on Antipodes Island. 
 
 "They can now thrive with mice no longer preying on the insects or competing with the land birds," she said. ||||| View a map of Anitipodes Island 
 
 The problem 
 
 
 
 Tristan albatross chick on subantarctic Gough Island being eaten alive by mice 
 
 Mice were the only mammalian pest species on the remote Antipodes Islands. They were most likely accidentally introduced in 1893 from a ship wreck or one of the many sealing gangs. Mice were abundant on the main Antipodes Island with an estimated population of 200,000 over the 2012 ha island. 
 
 Mice were responsible for the lack of invertebrates on the main Antipodes Island relative to the mouse free offshore islands, causing local extinctions. They competed with the island's unique land bird species; pipit, parakeet and snipe, by competing for food. 
 
 Mice were also known to eat the eggs and chicks of seabirds and were implicated in the deaths of albatross chicks on other subantarctic islands like Gough Island. Research on Antipodes Island has shown that mice eat huge numbers of invertebrates and seeds of plants that are critical to the health of the islands. 
 
 Million Dollar Mouse - the problem 
 
 The partners 
 
 Moved by his learnings during the Our Far South journey to Antarctica and the subantarctic islands, Gareth Morgan was motivated to raise a million dollars towards the eradication of mice from Antipodes Islands. 
 
 The New Zealand public raised $250,000 and WWF gave $100,000 towards the project. The Morgan Foundation matched their donations and brought other key partners together to raise enough money to get the project underway with the rest of the final cost funded by DOC. Island Conservation also joined the team as another key sponsor. 
 
 
 
 Non-toxic bait trial winter 2013 
 
 
 
 Checking non-toxic bait uptake on the endemic Antipodes parakeet 
 
 
 
 Antipodean wandering albatross pair 
 
 The project 
 
 In the winter of 2016, a 13-strong eradication team arrived on the main Antipodes Island. They used helicopters to spread cereal bait containing the rodent toxin brodifacoum from specialised under-slung bait-spreading buckets. They covered the island in two separate applications. 
 
 In February 2018, two mice breeding seasons after the program was delivered, a monitoring team arrived to determine the project’s outcome. 
 
 They deployed 200 inked tracking tunnels and searched the island for three weeks with two rodent detection dogs from the Conservation Dogs Programme supported by Kiwibank and the Auckland City Council. 
 
 No mice were detected, confirming the Million Dollar Mouse campaign successfully eradicated mice from Antipodes Island in the New Zealand Subantarctic. 
 
 Media release 21 March 2018: Million Dollar Mouse successfully eradicates mice from Antipodes Island 
 
 Related links
– A subantarctic archipelago is making "huge news": The New Zealand Herald reports there are officially no more mice on the country's Antipodes Islands, which once housed up to 200,000 of the rodents. They caused a big threat to the World Heritage Site by preying on native birds, bugs, and plants, and the five-year effort to do away with them got an assist from the public, with the "Million Mouse Project" fundraising campaign bringing six figures. The Department of Conservation explains that cereal bait laced with rodent toxin was dropped via helicopter on the island during the winter of 2016. A team scoured the island last month looking for any mice and found none. "This is huge news for conservation both in New Zealand and internationally," says New Zealand Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage. She says more than two dozen types of birds, 21 uncommon plants, and more than 150 insect species will benefit. Both Radio New Zealand and NPR note the mice originally found their way to the Antipodes either on 19th-century ships or via a shipwreck and proceeded to purge the island of at least two insect species, as well as to displace some seabirds to other islands. The initiative in the Antipodes isn't a stand-alone: The island nation has also gotten rid of other invasive species in the name of boosting biodiversity, including goats, rats, cats, rabbits, and a local meat-eating weasel. New Zealand's ultimate goal is to rid itself completely of all invasive pests by 2050, per Nature. (Scientists are bashing in the heads of invasive iguanas in Florida.)