Predators In Paradise And The World's Greatest Wildlife Rescue Summary

The book that my group decided to read was Rat Island: Predators in Paradise and the World's Greatest Wildlife Rescue by William Stolzenburg. This book chronicles the invasive pests like rats, weasels, stoats, ferrets, and cats invading small islands and decimating the natural plant and fauna. The main focus of this book is the invasion of New Zealand by rats and how they threatened the existence of the native flightless parrot, the kakapo. This book examines the causes and effects of the invasive species brought to remote islands by humans and how we can fix them. The fauna of these remote islands get feasted on because they have not adapted to such vicious, relentless predators. Throughout the book, we get to follow the kakapo through their …show more content…
Stolzenburg went into great length to explain the different kinds of poisons that were used to kill the rats that were threatening the existence of many species of birds. Warfarin was the first poison used to kill rats effectively and safely. It caused internal bleeding in the rats that would lead to death by blood loss. This poison was better than the chemicals like arsenic, and zinc phosphide because it didn’t reveal that the rat was dying to the other rats. An even better poison that Stolzenburg described was brodifacoum, a poison that killed rats silently in their sleep, also by internal blood loss. This poison was the hardest to detect for the rats and they did not become weary of its effect so the rats ate it until they all died. Scientists found a way to kill the rats effectively and almost harmlessly. The science of natural selection and evolution was very well explained. He talked about how the kakapo was one of many birds that adapted to birds of prey by living on the ground and being nocturnal. He then explained why it was so easy for the rats to kill the birds because they had the wrong adaptations. He explained natural selection very