Prolonged coronavirus lockdown will lead to rise in pests and predators - experts
Thursday, 2 April 2020
The coronavirus lockdown could have a serious effect on our native animal population as pest control is not considered an essential service, experts say.
Pest management and trapping across the country has been brought to a halt as the Government's priority shifts to slowing the spread of coronavirus, according to the Department of Conservation.
As of Thursday, there were 797 diagnosed or probable cases of coronavirus in New Zealand.
Auckland University conservation biologist Dr James Russell said autumn was a crucial time for pest control and if the lockdown is extended, pest control needs to be reclassified as an essential service.
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Once pest control is stopped, he said, predator numbers will rapidly increase above the controlled threshold and could start to do damage to native birds.
Autumn is also the time of year when rats are most likely to be found swimming to island nature reserves, Russell said.
'Of particular concern is maintaining island and fenced sanctuary biosecurity – responding to a rodent or stoat invasion must happen with the rapidity of response to a wild fire or whale stranding.'
Russell said that if the lockdown moves to being months-long, then in some areas rodents will have recovered in such numbers that in many places it will be as if pest control never occurred there.
Four-week breaks, while not ideal, will not have too bad of an effect as pest control is typically done every four weeks anyway, he said.
As part of alert level four the Department of Conservation has all its staff, apart from incident management teams, working from home.
This includes teams who would normally be monitoring species, monitoring pests, deploying technology, checking traps and undertaking predator control operations.
A spokesperson said the department's priority is to support New Zealand in stopping the spread of coronavirus and saving lives.
However, Forest and Bird conservation advocate Dean Baigent-Mercer said there should be quick action after the lockdown ends.
Coronavirus doesn't mean environmental issues have disappeared, he said.
'Without pest control rodents and possums will be gorging themselves on the fruit and happily breeding.
'We don't want to lose the gains we've made and there's [one] rule to success in pest control: consistency.'
Russell said if the alert level 4 stretches for longer than four weeks then pest control should be considered an essential service, as the job is a rather isolated one.
It often involves 'small teams being marooned alone on remote islands to eradicate pests, to one or two people in their own bubble maintaining long trap lines, sometimes wandering long tracks alone in the bush for hours without seeing another soul'.