Super-sized ‘mega rat’ find shocks Wellington conservationists
This article was written by Sam Smith for Stuff on 15 November 2024.
Conservationists at Predator Free Wellington have been taken somewhat by surprise with what they are calling the largest rat they have ever caught.
Weighing 523g and measuring 400mm from nose to tail, this appropriately called “mega rat” was found by trappers dead on the road in Prince of Wales Park. It was thought to have been poisoned.
Sandra Haluza was the one who made the discovery, and she told Stuff she thought it was a kitten at first.
“I was driving past and I saw it on the side of the road. I did a double take and realised it was a rat.”
“I was thinking, do I really want to pick this up in my personal car right now?
“Like I’m not even in one of the work utes or anything. But luckily, I had a plastic bag in the back.”
The size of the rat was what surprised, with Haluza saying they usually catch smaller ship rats.
“We catch a lot of ship rats, and those tend to be a bit smaller. So they’ll sit at about 200-300g. The Norway rat, they are more of the urban rat, and those tend to get a bit bigger, around 300-400g or so.”
Haluza said rats are a big problem in Wellington, with people regularly alerting them to sightings.
“They’re a pretty big problem. We, as a project, target stoats and possums as well, but just because we’re working so close to the city that those species aren’t a problem.”
“Rats are our main thing we’re targeting. We find that there’s a lot of rats out there without any other competition. You’ll be surprised at the amount of people that will say that they’ve seen them.”
Haluza said removing this “mega rat” from the environment will make a huge difference to the local environment and their conservation efforts, but warned there are probably still other similar sized rats out there.
“For it to get that big, it must have really been eating a lot of food, I assume probably a lot of other species as well.”
“It gets to a point where they probably just get so big they can’t even fit into some of the traps and stations. So it’s good that it’s been caught, because obviously the bigger they get, they’re probably older and they get wiser.”
As for what happens now? The “mega rat” will be sent for taxidermy, and added to Predator free Wellington’s collection.
“We like to autopsy it and get as much information as possible. But then we decided we would taxidermy it just based on its size.”
“We’ve already got a collection of two rats, a stoat and a weasel.”
Predator Free Wellington said in the area of Hataitai alone, where they do a lot of their work, they estimated there was one rat to every two people.
Both ship and Norway rats were deemed pests in New Zealand, surviving on things like native birds, lizards, weta, eggs, and chicks.
Posted: 15 November 2024