On one French Polynesian island, residents fight to preserve lorikeet habitat and combat invasive rats. The island’s greatest defense? Koha, a scruffy border terrier mix that hunts down rodents.
Every day at sunrise on the small French Polynesian island of Rimatara, Tiraha Mooroa goes for a run with Koha the dog. Koha, a scruffy border terrier mix, has an important job: to sniff out and kill any black rats he can find.
“Every time the cargo ship arrives, I go with Koha and we check every container coming ashore,” says Mooroa, who works for conservation association Rima Ura. “If he smells a rat, people will make a circle around the container, then open it … and Koha does the rest,” exterminating the rat. In 2007, in an effort to reestablish a Rimatara lorikeet population elsewhere, 27 of the birds were relocated from Rimatara to the island of Atiu, in the Cook Islands. The conservation project, organized by Rima Ura, the Cook Island Natural Heritage Trust, and various government and international partners, was successful. Today in Atiu, the lorikeet population has grown to at least 400. The species also survives in small numbers on several atolls in the Kiribati Islands.
Ravatua-Smith’s face falls as he watches the footage. He speaks into the iPad to record his observations: “The videos confirm that after the visit of [a] white-tailed tropicbird, the two hatchlings are no longer in the nest. This is a confirmed predation event.”
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