The Amazing Adventures of Razza the Rat
Professor Witi Ihimaera (Arts) has written a short story based on the adventures of Razza the Rat. Illustrated by Astrid Matijasevich, published by Reed, the 54 page children's book is an unexpected result of the Rodent Invasion Project's work. Students from Sunnynook School put on a dramatic performance of the story at the Takapuna Library on 9 December, after a reading of the book by Witi Ihimaera.
James Russell's article, on which this story was based, appeared in Nature, Issue 437 Number 7062, p.1107.
A single Norway rat released on to a rat-free island was not caught for more than four months, despite intensive efforts to trap it. The rat first explored the 9.5-hectare island and then swam 400 metres across open water to another rat-free island, evading capture for 18 weeks until an aggressive combination of detection and trapping methods were deployed simultaneously. The exceptional difficulty of this capture indicates that methods normally used to eradicate rats in dense populations are unlikely to be effective on small numbers, a finding that could have global implications for conservation on protected islands.
See the islands involved: Motuhoropapa and Otata.
The University of Auckland rodent invasion research group is a loosely knit collection of researchers focusing on the dynamics of rodent distribution and invasion throughout New Zealand and its offshore islands.
The group is involved in a number of projects investigating the rate of invasion of offshore islands by rats and the behaviour of individuals as they invade islands using a combination of ecological, genetic and statistical methods.
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