Returning possums to Australia, hedgehogs to Europe, and stoats to the United Kingdom sounds like a win-win. Could we return introduced predators to their native habitats? Here’s why that solution isn’t as simple, or as helpful, as it sounds.
1. It’s legally complicated
Transporting live animals across international borders is no simple task — it’s highly regulated.
We can’t send brushtail possums back to Australia because they’re not on the permitted list of imports; the only mammals allowed are dogs, cats, rabbits, and horses. Similarly, the UK regulations only specify a few permitted species, and stoats aren’t on the list.
These countries wouldn’t accept planeloads of animals; their regulations help protect their ecosystems and stop the spread of disease, just like New Zealand’s strict biosecurity requirements help defend ours.
2. It’s logistically impossible
To send them back, we would have to catch them first.
There are tens of millions of rats, stoats, possums, ferrets and weasels in New Zealand. Capturing them and exporting them would be an enormous, ongoing and essentially impossible task.
Unlike kill traps or automatic resetting traps, live capture cages take more time and energy. By law, they must be checked daily, making it unfeasible to capture large numbers of animals in large areas of the country.
Even if we could set and check traps everywhere, it’s unlikely we could remove predators faster than they multiply using just live capture traps.
3. Relocation isn’t a kindness
Transporting wild animals isn’t just difficult, it’s also bad for them. Because animals can carry disease, transporting animals across international borders requires quarantine, keeping them apart from others to ensure their health.
While this works for domesticated pets like dogs and cats, it’s a different story for wild animals. “Stoats are extremely easily stressed in captivity,” says Manaaki Whenua ecologist Andrew Veale. “It would be inhumane to export stoats to the UK.”
The stress of being contained and shipped across the world would harm the animals physically and impact their survival once released into an unfamiliar environment.
4. It won’t fix anything in home countries
Even if we could transport animals, it doesn’t guarantee it would help the species or their populations. Moving animals around is just one piece of the puzzle.
The whole ecosystem needs to be considered: habitat, territory, food, and other natural factors.
Population decline doesn’t just happen randomly; there’s always a reason.
Simply moving them back to where they came from won’t fix the underlying issues of population decline, which for stoats, possums and hedgehogs is mostly habitat loss. The ecosystems these predators come from are already stressed and can’t support an influx of new animals.
“It’s a recipe for disaster,” Veale says. “The UK and Australia already have limited resources for stoats and possums. Adding more animals to those environments would only lead to starvation or fatal competition.”
5. Some of these animals have no home to go to
Feral cats and ferrets don’t have natural wild homes; both species are former domestic animals left to go wild. The SPCA says that feral cats don’t make good pets. They’ve spent so much time living without people that coming back to human civilisation is unrealistic and unethical.
Rats, too, don’t have a clear home to return to. They originated in parts of Asia but have long since spread globally, adapting to live alongside people.
Trying to return them to their supposed native range wouldn’t make ecological sense. Wild ecosystems don’t need more rats, and human environments already have plenty.
Sending them back where they came from is inhumane, illegal, or impossible.
What sounds like a win-win, is a lose-lose. Instead, of thinking about sending them back, we need to keep on using humane, science-based strategies that protect native species and ecosystems right here in New Zealand.
