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Acclimatisation Societies of New Zealand

10,000 Birds

They took dogs to Australia, chickens across the Pacific, rabbits to England, horses to the New World, and then brought potatoes back. Secondly, New Zealand had already experienced on wave of extinction due to the introduction or rats and human hunting. Brush-tailed Possums were brought from Australia to help start a fur industry.

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When conservation and animal rights collide

10,000 Birds

I’ve written at length about the specific vulnerability of insular faunas and the catastrophic extinctions caused by the arrival of rats, mice, ferrets, cats and possums (amongst others), here in New Zealand fully half the pre-human bird species were lost.