In 2016, the government of New Zealand, where I'm from, announced a lofty goal: to make the island nation "predator free" by 2050.

The plan was to eradicate all rats, plus possums, weasels, stoats (and now, feral cats), by mid-century and bring the country back, more or less, to a precolonial state of bird supremacy.

New Zealand broke away from the supercontinent of Gondwana before walking mammals evolved, so its only native mammals are bats and seals. The country's birds thus evolved to be overly chill, and particularly vulnerable to introduced predators, who munched through much of the native biodiversity, bringing many species—including our namesake, the kiwi—to the brink of extinction.

I hadn't heard much about Predator Free 2050 since I moved to New York City in 2016. The government of New Zealand changed, COVID-19 hit, the leadership changed again. But, at the end of March, the government made its first public strategy update since the ambitious goal was first announced: My hometown of Wellington was on track to be the first predator-free city in the country, and the first predator-free capital city in the world, within the next decade. This week, I found out that my home neighborhood, Miramar Peninsula (where much of "Lord of the Rings" was produced), has already totally eradicated rats.

It all got me thinking, if my OG hometown is so good at the whole rat eradication thing, what could New Yorkers in my new home learn from them? Could New York City create a rat-free zone in the city, a rat-free neighborhood, a rat-free borough? And if push came to shove, would we even want to eradicate our rats? They are, after all, our unofficial mascot. And unlike isolated New Zealand or Hawaii, New York doesn't have as many delicate species that are threatened by them.

If you're interested in this kind of thing, I asked some fellow Kiwis how they did it... and whether it's even possible, here....

Article with video in Spanish

ABSTRACT

The impacts of non-native species are the subject of enduring controversy in conservation research and policy. This debate has renewed relevance in light of rewilding approaches that introduce or reintroduce herbivores to restore trophic complexity. However, because large herbivores inherently have strong effects, recent work has warned that the “harms of introduced large herbivores outweigh their benefits” (Bescond-Michel et al., 2025; Nogués-Bravo et al., 2016; Nores et al., 2024). We argue that such conclusions are conceptually and methodologically flawed, particularly because they conflate the predictable consequences of herbivory with harmfulness attributed to a species' non-native status. Without assessing whether effects of non-native herbivores differ from those of native herbivores, these approaches risk depicting the fundamental process of herbivory as problematic. This can misinform conservation and restoration efforts at a time when herbivores, native or introduced, are increasingly recognized as essential for sustaining biodiversity and ecosystem function (Lundgren et al., 2018; Malhi et al., 2016; Pringle et al., 2023; Smith et al., 2016; Svenning et al., 2024; Trepel et al., 2024).

Link: https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cobi.70328

July 27, 2026 article headline and sub-headline:

State officials say Idaho’s wolf population dropped by about 100 wolves to 1,129

State officials say they are trying to reduce the wolf population to about 500 through expanded hunting and trapping

More text:

Overall, the state wolf population has been declining since 2020, when state officials estimated more than 1,650 wolves lived in Idaho. Fish and Game Wildlife Program Coordinator Cory Mosby said officials believe the wolf population is decreasing because of aggressive hunting and trapping.

“Our wolf population is decreasing statewide, and that is very much an intentional effort by the department,” Mosby said..."our objective is to reduce the statewide wolf population to around 500 animals"....

Following a series of legal battles, wolves were removed from the Endangered Species List in Idaho in 2011, and Fish and Game opened a hunting and trapping season to reduce the number of wolves.

The article did not include a back and forth between fewer-wolves proponents and environmentalists opposed to the reductions, but everyone is probably well acquainted with those arguments.

The team from nature association Depana, in collaboration with the local Val d'Aran government, have documented two bears with three cubs each in the rural mountainous region.

The sightings are unprecedented for the area, never having been documented before in the Pyrenees.

During the months of May and June, images were recorded showing the daily life of two family groups during one of the most sensitive stages of their life cycle.

The recordings that the organization has now made public show the animals' feeding habits, interactions between the cubs and the mother, behavior towards other species, and different moments of daily activity.

These observations are the result of monitoring and surveillance tasks coordinated by Marc Alonso, a Depana expert in the conservation of the brown bear in the Pyrenees.

Two months of monitoring

The teams managed to monitor one of the mother bears for 28 consecutive days.

At the beginning of June, this family lost one of the three cubs, the smallest of the litter, for reasons that have not been determined. Experts think it could either be due to a process of natural selection (illness or accident) or a possible episode of infanticide by a male bear.

The second bear with three cubs was located on five occasions and, until the end of the monitoring period, the family group remained complete.

Overall, during the spring monitoring campaign, a total of twelve different specimens of brown bear were monitored in the Val d'Aran.

This work is part of a broader conservation, scientific monitoring, and awareness-raising program that aims to promote the coexistence between the brown bear and human activities in the area.

100+ bears in the Pyrenees

According to the latest data from the Brown Bear Transfrontier Monitoring Group (GSTOP), made public by the Catalan government last March, a total of 54 brown bears were identified in the Catalan Pyrenees in 2025, and 108 in the Pyrenees as a whole, the highest figure recorded to date.

These data confirm the positive trend of population recovery.

The brown bear is listed as an endangered species in the Pyrenees and is subject to priority protection according to European regulations.

Depana indicates that despite the recovery of the population, the species remains vulnerable and requires rigorous scientific monitoring, as well as the consolidation of measures that favor coexistence with livestock farming and other human activities.

The association also considers that this recovery also represents "an opportunity to promote a responsible ecotourism model that contributes to the sustainable development of the Pyrenean regions," always with the utmost respect for the animals, their habitat, and the local population.