New Zealand plans to eliminate all rats to protect native birds and update bait information in real time through the GPS app.

CTOnews.com, June 27 (Xinhua) according to BBC, the New Zealand government and people are planning to eliminate all rats to protect native birds, and many volunteers have started anti-rodent operations with the help of the GPS app.

▲ map source Pixabay New Zealand split from an ancient supercontinent 85 million years ago, thus forming a unique ecosystem, which made many New Zealand native birds nest on the ground or could not fly at all, because mammals had not yet appeared and there were no land predators.

However, in the 13th century, Polynesians first brought rats, and six centuries later European colonists introduced larger mammals, which wiped out many New Zealand native birds. Animal experts say 26 million birds in New Zealand die from predators every year, including all kinds of rodents. Nearly 1/3 of New Zealand's native species have been extinct since human settlement.

In 2016, New Zealand legislated to eradicate the worst predators, including three species of rats (Pacific, boat and Norwegian), weasels (ferrets, weasels, ferrets) and possums, with a time limit of 2050.

Today, volunteers are walking through New Zealand's complex wild environment under the leadership of the GPS app to find places for rats. Each time a bait is deployed, they update the information in the app in real time, and the volunteers share the capture of the bait through WhatsApp groups and other ways, which are usually made of peanut butter and poison rat poison.

Despite the arduous task, the volunteers believe that as long as there are sufficient funds and mobilization, the goal can be achieved. To this end, New Zealand has even set up a public body called Predator Free 2050 Ltd to introduce government and private funds into anti-rodent projects to test the feasibility of these eradication strategies.

By far the largest area that has achieved complete rodent eradication is South Georgia Island in the South Atlantic Ocean, a narrow island just 105miles long. While New Zealand has a land area of 270000 square kilometers, there are still doubts about the country's rodent control plan.