Huge Rats May Have Wiped Out Rare Birds

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30389, 13 March 1964, Page 14

Huge Rats May Have Wiped Out Rare Birds

(New Zealand Press Association)

INVERCARGILL, March 12. One of New Zealander’s rarest birds, the saddleback, may have been almost exterminated on Great South Cape Island by huge rats which now infest it, Stewart Island fishermen reported today. They said that there were so many rats on the island mutton-birders who arrived there on Sunday will have an extremely difficult task keeping them away from their catches. Greait South Cape, the biggest of the mutton-bird islands, had a big concentration of saddlebacks, birds about the size of a blackbird with a broad brown band across their backs. No bush robins, which used to abound on the island, have been seen there. “One mutton-birder who arrived at the Cape on Monday opened the door of his

house and saw nine huge rats scampering about,” said a fisherman. Rats had been seen swimming at slack waiter between Stewart Island and the other islands. “They had their tails stuck up in the air and were swimming well.” Fears for the safety of the prolific bird life on the islands and for the future of the mutton-bird industry unless the rats were exterminated, were expressed by other Stewart Islanders.