They're using baited peanut butter. How many pets (specifically dogs) are going to die as a result of this exercise in expensive, naïve futility..?
Absolute bollocks. The whole article is. Sure, this works on small, unpopulated sub-Antarctic islands, but there is zero chance of this working for the whole country. Zero...
Tom Scott has a video about the efforts. The traps have a small entrance that's only a couple inches across. Any full grown cat or dog wouldn't fit through the entrance. It has two layers of grates that would prevent a cat or dog from losing a paw.
What about all the other small animals that can get into this and eat the peanut butter? I know in north America we have tons of small mammals etc that would die in these traps
Mustelids especially due to their inherent curiosity and need to investigate tunnels. Conversely, it's why they can be so easy to trap when you want to.
NZ, oddly, hardly has any native mammals (at least large ones)…
I assume they must have some small ones, though. And probably the keas (crazy ground-dwelling parrots that eat fucken everything, even car window seals) would stick their heads in to investigate, if nothing else…
It certainly reeks of “unintended consequences” to me.
Like 1080 poison (for foxes, mostly) in Australia…
They're using baited peanut butter. How many pets (specifically dogs) are going to die as a result of this exercise in expensive, naïve futility..?
Absolute bollocks. The whole article is. Sure, this works on small, unpopulated sub-Antarctic islands, but there is zero chance of this working for the whole country. Zero...
Idiotic AF.
Tom Scott has a video about the efforts. The traps have a small entrance that's only a couple inches across. Any full grown cat or dog wouldn't fit through the entrance. It has two layers of grates that would prevent a cat or dog from losing a paw.
That's enough for some dogs and definitely enough for cats
I don't think any cat would be interested in peanut butter.
Every first world country exterminates stray dogs and cats on the regular.
What about all the other small animals that can get into this and eat the peanut butter? I know in north America we have tons of small mammals etc that would die in these traps
Mustelids especially due to their inherent curiosity and need to investigate tunnels. Conversely, it's why they can be so easy to trap when you want to.
NZ, oddly, hardly has any native mammals (at least large ones)…
I assume they must have some small ones, though. And probably the keas (crazy ground-dwelling parrots that eat fucken everything, even car window seals) would stick their heads in to investigate, if nothing else…
It certainly reeks of “unintended consequences” to me.
Like 1080 poison (for foxes, mostly) in Australia…