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Lord Howe Island rat eradication – restoring an island paradise

Our Work  |  Feral Animals

How would you like a 15 to 1 return on your investment? Well, that’s what we’re looking at under a plan to rid Lord Howe Island of rats and mice. Island Conservation’s Dr Ray Nias takes a look at the economics.

For just $9 million one of Australia’s most famous and beautiful islands could be rid of invasive rodents, and the return on the investment amounts to $141 million over 30 years. This is extraordinary value, but what do we really get for the money?

In what appears to be a world first, the Lord Howe Island Board calculated the expected impacts over 30 years of removing all invasive rodents on the island by comparing the likely outcomes from two scenarios – the island ecosystem with and without invasive rodents.

The major costs of the ‘without rodents’ scenario are simply the cost of the eradication operation itself – helicopter and ground-based operations as well as a staff of 30-40 people working for several months of the year. The operation will also need to maintain and improve island biosecurity to ensure rodents do not re-invade.

There would be an initial, short-term cost to the tourism industry, but it would be quite small – the operation would take place in the off-season when there are fewer visitors on the island, and the loss would be more than compensated for by the temporary workforce.

The other major economic benefit comes from the prevention of extinctions and the return of species lost from the island. Studies have found that the community is willing to pay up to $8 million to avoid the extinction of species. The additional economic benefits of an increase in abundance of non-threatened species were not costed, but would also add to the overall socio-economic tally.

Restoring a lost world

The benefits of removing invasive rodents from a World Heritage-listed island are well known and documented. Among other things it’s expected to avoid seven extinctions over the next 20 years and four species, including the Kermadec petrel and white-bellied storm petrel, could be returned to the island after having been lost due to predation by rats and mice.

A unique and endangered palm-forest ecosystem would be restored to health and other World Heritage values maintained.

The tourism industry would be another big winner. It is estimated that without rodents, and with more abundant wildlife, the prestige of Lord Howe Island as a nature-based tourism destination would increase and so too would the price tourism operators can charge.

Importantly for many people on the island the economic benefits from improved production of Kentia Palm seeds (a popular ornamental palm sold around the world) and local fruit and vegetables, largely completes the picture.

I fell in love with Lord Howe Island as a graduate student surveying its endangered woodhens. I have been following the proposed removal of invasive rodents from the island now for more than 16 years. I have never had any doubt about the ecological benefits of restoring the rodent-free status of Lord Howe Island. It is great to see that the economic analysis agrees with me.


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Dear Project Team,

[YOUR PERSONALISED MESSAGE WILL APPEAR HERE.] 

I support the amendment to the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan to allow our incredible National Parks staff to use aerial shooting as one method to rapidly reduce feral horse numbers. I want to see feral horse numbers urgently reduced in order to save the national park and our native wildlife that live there.

The current approach is not solving the problem. Feral horse numbers have rapidly increased in Kosciuszko National Park to around 18,000, a 30% jump in just the past 2 years. With the population so high, thousands of feral horses need to be removed annually to reduce numbers and stop our National Park becoming a horse paddock. Aerial shooting, undertaken humanely and safely by professionals using standard protocols, is the only way this can happen.

The government’s own management plan for feral horses states that ‘if undertaken in accordance with best practice, aerial shooting can have the lowest negative animal welfare impacts of all lethal control methods’.

This humane and effective practice is already used across Australia to manage hundreds of thousands of feral animals like horses, deer, pigs, and goats.

Trapping and rehoming of feral horses has been used in Kosciuszko National Park for well over a decade but has consistently failed to reduce the population, has delayed meaningful action and is expensive. There are too many feral horses in the Alps and not enough demand for rehoming for it to be relied upon for the reduction of the population.

Fertility control as a management tool is only effective for a small, geographically isolated, and accessible population of feral horses where the management outcome sought is to maintain the population at its current size. It is not a viable option to reduce the large and growing feral horse population in the vast and rugged terrain of Kosciuszko National Park.

Feral horses are trashing and trampling our sensitive alpine ecosystems and streams, causing the decline and extinction of native animals. The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee has stated that feral horses ‘may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction’ for 12 alpine species.

I recognise the sad reality that urgent and humane measures are necessary to urgently remove the horses or they will destroy the Snowies and the native wildlife that call the mountains home. I support a healthy national park where native species like the Corroboree Frog and Mountain Pygmy Possum can thrive.

Kind regards,
[Your name]
[Your email address]
[Your postcode]


Dear Project Team,

[YOUR PERSONALISED MESSAGE WILL APPEAR HERE.] 

I support the amendment to the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan to allow our incredible National Parks staff to use aerial shooting as one method to rapidly reduce feral horse numbers. I want to see feral horse numbers urgently reduced in order to save the national park and our native wildlife that live there.

The current approach is not solving the problem. Feral horse numbers have rapidly increased in Kosciuszko National Park to around 18,000, a 30% jump in just the past 2 years. With the population so high, thousands of feral horses need to be removed annually to reduce numbers and stop our National Park becoming a horse paddock. Aerial shooting, undertaken humanely and safely by professionals using standard protocols, is the only way this can happen.

The government’s own management plan for feral horses states that ‘if undertaken in accordance with best practice, aerial shooting can have the lowest negative animal welfare impacts of all lethal control methods’.

This humane and effective practice is already used across Australia to manage hundreds of thousands of feral animals like horses, deer, pigs, and goats.

Trapping and rehoming of feral horses has been used in Kosciuszko National Park for well over a decade but has consistently failed to reduce the population, has delayed meaningful action and is expensive. There are too many feral horses in the Alps and not enough demand for rehoming for it to be relied upon for the reduction of the population.

Fertility control as a management tool is only effective for a small, geographically isolated, and accessible population of feral horses where the management outcome sought is to maintain the population at its current size. It is not a viable option to reduce the large and growing feral horse population in the vast and rugged terrain of Kosciuszko National Park.

Feral horses are trashing and trampling our sensitive alpine ecosystems and streams, causing the decline and extinction of native animals. The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee has stated that feral horses ‘may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction’ for 12 alpine species.

I recognise the sad reality that urgent and humane measures are necessary to urgently remove the horses or they will destroy the Snowies and the native wildlife that call the mountains home. I support a healthy national park where native species like the Corroboree Frog and Mountain Pygmy Possum can thrive.

Kind regards,
[Your name]
[Your email address]
[Your postcode]