Russell nears historic milestone as New Zealand's first pest-free mainland town

Russell is on the verge of becoming the first mainland town in New Zealand to achieve pest-free status by eliminating rats and possums.

The Effort

For more than 20 years, the largely volunteer-run Russell Landcare Trust has worked to remove introduced predators and bring back native wildlife. The trust maintains 7,500 rat, possum and stoat traps alongside 10,500 bait stations across 3,000 hectares of the Russell Peninsula. In recent weeks, the group has started pulling traps out of the bush because some areas no longer have any pests left to catch. Nik Minchin, the trust's technical advisor, notes that 2,000 hectares of the peninsula are now possum-free and 1,000 hectares are rat-free. Pulled traps are refurbished by volunteers and moved further up the peninsula to expand the pest-control buffer zone and stop re-invasion.

Local Results

In the Old Russell area, which covers Ōkiato and the car ferry ramp, only four rats have been caught in the past three years. Those four animals arrived last summer by swimming or hitching a ride on a boat. At Tapeka, located at the tip of the peninsula, no possums have been caught for eight months and no rats for six months. Even at the local rubbish tip, where hundreds of rats were once caught, no rats have appeared for more than three months. Russell Landcare Trust general manager Ella van Gool points out that while some parts of Wellington are rat-free, clearing an entire town makes Russell unique on the New Zealand mainland. She credits the success to the area's geography on a peninsula with a narrow neck, combined with massive community backing. About 98 percent of landowners give permission for pest control on their property, while others help with volunteering, maintenance, donations, and spreading awareness.

Wildlife Boom

The pest removal has triggered a major population boom for the kiwi. The feathered national icon now outnumbers human residents by a factor of three to one, with an estimated 2,500 kiwi in Russell compared to its permanent human population. The area is also believed to be the only place in New Zealand with significant numbers of both kiwi and North Island weka living in an urban environment. Weka died out locally around 1940, but the trust re-introduced them in 2002.

Context

Invasive mammalian predators like rats, possums, and stoats pose a severe threat to New Zealand's ground-dwelling native birds, which evolved without land-based predators and often cannot fly or defend their nests. Mainland conservation projects typically face ongoing reinvasion pressures from surrounding areas, making complete eradication in populated regions exceptionally difficult compared to offshore islands.