Where did the rats of Big South Cape Island come from?

2016/01/01 by Judith Robins, Steven Miller, James C. Russell +2 · 4 citations
Environmental Science · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Animal Ecology and Behavior Studies #Yersinia bacterium, plague, ectoparasites research #Wildlife Ecology and Conservation

paper · pdf · doi:10.20417/nzjecol.40.26

openalex publication_date 2016/01/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04

Abstract

The ship rat invasion of Big South Cape Island/Taukihepa in the 1960s was an ecological catastrophe that marked a turning point for the management of rodents on offshore islands of New Zealand. Despite the importance of this event in the conservation history of New Zealand, and subsequent major advances in rodent eradication and biosecurity, the source and pathway of the rat invasion of Big South Cape Island has never been identified.

Citations

• Median-joining networks for inferring intraspecific phylogenies
• The legacy of Big South Cape: rat irruption to rat eradication

Cited by

• The legacy of Big South Cape: rat irruption to rat eradication
• Global population divergence and admixture of the brown rat ( Rattus norvegicus )
• Genomic analyses reveal three independent introductions of the invasive brown rat (Rattus norvegicus) to the Faroe Islands
• Taukihepa / Big South Cape Island [wikipedia]

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