MIXED COMPANY

by Anne K Jacques.
Part 4.

The Rat In New Zealand

The first rat to arrive in New Zealand was the Polynesian rat (Rattus exulans)
brought here by the Maori along with the Polynesian dog at least one thousand
years ago. This rat was a harmless little vegetarian, living on berries, seeds
and roots. Neither rat nor dog offered any great offence to native wildlife. It
was man who was the menace, for he ate anything that breathed. The coastal
cliffs were the nesting grounds of innumerable seabirds, and the forests of the
interior were crowded with birdlife. Many were flightless varieties, including
the great ostrich-like moa, which was hunted to its ultimate extinction.
The Maori did not bring the rat or the dog along with him in those first
canoes just because he thought they might enjoy the trip. (His name for the rat
was `kiore', and that suggests food.) The dog helped the men to catch the rats,
which were greatly relished by both of them. The dog generally ended his days in
a Maori oven too. (Most Polynesians ate dogs; some still do so!) The dog was
generally eaten at special ceremonial feasts and in some places was reserved for
chiefs and other persons of rank and importance. Dog-skin cloaks were very
highly prized and invested the wearer with considerable dignity and prestige. In
1770 Sir Joseph Banks recorded that the Polynesian rat was becoming quite
uncommon, and today it is thought to be extinct in the North Island but to exist
in a few remote spots in the South and in some off-shore islands. As for the
Polynesian dog, one often hears a mongrel dog referred to as `a Maori dog' but
the true `kuri' is no longer to be found.
The black rat was not brought to New Zealand by plan and foresight as the
Polynesian rat had been. He arrived as a stowaway on the `Endeavour' in 1770. As
he was never regarded by the Maori as good to eat, he was left in peace to
increase and multiply. He found New Zealand entirely to his liking, enjoying the
same basic diet as his predecessors, to which he added grubs and small insects
and an occasional bird's egg. Being a lover of light and high places, and a good
climber, he often made his home in treetops and was even known to convert
vacated birds nests for his own accommodation.
The brown rat also arrived as a stowaway in the early nineteenth century. He
travelled from Europe on the growing number of French and English trading ships
and was soon very much `at home'. By the 1880s he was so well established that
he had become a problem to man and bird. It was not much longer before he had
serious problems of his very own – too many mouths and too little to put in
them, the very problem facing mankind at the present time, but the world still
had frontiers a hundred years ago and man and rat could still set out to find
`fresh fields and pastures new'.

In 1894 Richard Henry reported seeing great moving columns of rats at many
places in the South Island and expressed the opinion that these swarming
thousands were almost exclusively males – an opinion based no doubt on a `bird's
eye' rather than on a `worm's eye view'. He wrote that it was a sad prospect for
any ground-nesting or ground-feeding bird in the path of such a torrent of
rodents.
Ferrets, stoats and weasels were introduced to help man in his stand against
rat and rabbit infestation, but the newcomers preferred native birds and
poultry, so man had to do his own ratting and rabbiting. Until about 50 years
ago the rabbiter on horseback with his attendant troop of dogs was a familiar
and picturesque sight in the New Zealand countryside. Now the poisoner has taken
over, with phosphorus, cyanide, 1080 and warfarin, but the rat is with us still
and so is the rabbit. It is estimated that in the cities the rat population
generally equals that of the human population; in the rural areas it ranges from
twenty to twenty-five per acre and in thick bush about one per acre – which is
not actually infestation.
Following the general plan all the world over, in New Zealand the two kinds
of rats maintain a very sensible type of apartheid. Each has its own views about
what constitutes the `good life'. For the black rat it is the farmlands and the
hill sheep runs and the bush with its berries and seed, fresh air and light and
sunshine. For the brown fellow it is city life, basements of workshops,
storehouses and warehouses, rubbish tips, drains, tunnels and other obscure
places, but above all he likes waterways and never settles very far from river,
lake or seaside. This fact has led to his being frequently reffered to as the
`water rat'. Black rats are good swimmers too, but water to them is a drink, not
a near element.
It has been said that New Zealand was made late and made in a hurry – one
result being that the overall layer of topsoil is very shallow. The semi-nomadic
way of life of the Maoris and their reverence for trees safeguarded these hilly
islands from undue erosion. Unfortunately the settlers from Europe served other
gods – gods to whom the smell of burning timber was `a sweet odour'. The
worshippers of these gods sowed the grass see on the still warm ash and got
quick pastures and lush grazing. After roughly a hundred years there are
disquieting signs of deterioration in the still-existing native forests and the
hill-country pastures are becoming difficult and costly to maintain in a state
of profitable fertility. There is a big programme of research being undertaken
to find out just where to lay the blame for these trends. Many people blame the
exotic animals: the deer, the opossum, the rabbit and the rat. There is however
a possibility that the slowing up of the regeneration of the forests is in fact
due to fungus diseases quite unrelated to the grazing animals. As for the rat,
his appetite for grubs and small insects may prove to be of great benefit to the
forest, and the seeds and fruits he eats may be very well earned wages.

THE END

To club members - I was given a copy of extracts of MIXED COMPANY which
contained the pages of information about rodents only. For a copy of the
complete version of the book MIXED COMPANY by Anne K Jacques, please visit the
following web-sites to make your enquiries –
New Zealand Anti-Vivisection Society
http://www.nzavs.org.nz/
New Zealand Vegetarian Society
http://www.ivu.org/nzvs/
Royal New Zealand SPCA
http://www.rspcanz.org.nz/
Yours sincerely Rebekah Blackwolf Mitchell-Matthews
Club founder.