Rattus

Kuranui and Waikaia are iwi-owned islands in the Slipper group off the east coast of the Coromandel peninsula that have not been surveyed for 50 years. We visited both islands for one day and night each in April 2024 and undertook rodent trapping and species surveys of birds, reptiles, and vascular plants. The islands have changed little in 50 years. The avifauna remains similar and shared between both islands while the vegetation has continued to recover on a successional trajectory to a native state following burning. Some new weed species have colonised both islands.

While invasive rats are demonstrably inimical to indigenous vertebrate species, there has not been unequivocal evidence of benefit to invertebrate communities from management of these invasive mammals in New Zealand forest systems. The present study examined the response of land snail communities to intensive management of ship and Norway rats by sampling paired rainforest blocks, one block of which had been subject to intensive management of rats, while the other block had been without management of invasive rats and thus subject to ambient rodent infestations.