New Zealand's government has pledged to rid the country of all invasive species by the year 2050, and Million Dollar Mouse has now become a model for this hugely ambitious programme to clear predators island-by-island.
The Predator Free 2050 project has been backed by both government and conservationists alike, and seeks to rid the whole country of stoats, rats and possums within the next three decades.
There are some who think the project is either too ambitious, or is tantamount to "ecological xenophobia", Ed Yong wrote in a feature for The Atlantic website.
However, others say that new ideas in traps, poisons and genetic tweaking of predators' breeding habits could prove successful, and could be exported to wherever other countries are experiencing similar problems.
The country's growing experience in eliminating large populations of pests has now become a standard for dealing with the problem. "It's had more successful pest eradication projects on islands than almost any other country," Stuff's Charlie Mitchell writes.
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Science plodding along the well trodden path:
First experiment rodent-eradication on mice, then
apply that success on human rodents.
As with Genome Project, fee-free to the World.
