Ship rats can roam for more than a kilometre (when there aren’t many of them around)

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2023-04-05 03:00

New Zealand

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Researchers radio-tracked 23 adult ship rats on the edge of a forested area in Fiordland that had been treated by an aerial 1080 operation. Over the course of nine months monitoring those rodents that stayed alive, six rats stayed well within their expected range limits, while the other four went the distance and moved anywhere from 657–1516 metres into the previously treated area. The team says its findings demonstrate that ship rats can move large distances in areas where rat density is low and that understanding rates of reinvasion into control areas is critical for gaining an understanding of what drives ship rat population recovery following large-scale operations.