Stoat in the Dock

This book surveys the ecology of stoats resident in New Zealand since the 1880s, when they were deliberately imported from UK as potential agents of biological control against rabbits. Our current understanding of them and of their impacts on the communities of native animals and birds with which they now live has developed over decades of research. Past knowledge is essential to inform future decisions on when, where and how to minimize damage from stoats in the future. New Zealand is one of the most significant known examples of the drastic impacts of invasive predators on endemic species and communities, but its story is largely unfamiliar to international audiences. This is a detailed, academically rigorous and fully documented account of how introduced mustelids have made themselves at home in New Zealand, written by a specialist stoat biologist as a single coherent story. Each chapter includes a section explaining the context in which the most important details of the biology of stoats (and, to a lesser extent, ferrets) have been documented, what techniques worked and what did not, and why. The book is written primarily for the well-informed general public, plus a cross-disciplinary audience of academics, senior undergraduates and postgraduates interested in the history of interactions between predators and native wildlife, and professionals working on invasive species in New Zealand and elsewhere. It will be of special interest to conservationists, birdwatchers and naturalists.