Ecologist Elizabeth Bell Kills to Be Kind

Elizabeth “Biz” Bell is one of the primary architects of a series of ambitious conservation projects from the Caribbean to the Channel Islands. Honed in New Zealand and now exported to the world, they are called predator-free zones, and their primary tool is death: mass trapping or poisoning drives to eliminate introduced predators or pests, Tess McClure reports for The Guardian.

Bell and her colleagues at Blenheim-based Wildlife Management International hope to halt the cascade of extinctions exacerbated by the introduction of predatory or competing species, allowing native and endangered creatures, particularly birds, to return and thrive, McClure writes.

“New Zealand are the world experts, leading the charge in developing new technology, new tools, new methods,” Bell says. That expertise is now becoming a valuable international export.

Original article by Tess McClure, The Guardian, September 10, 2023.

Photo by Jim Tannock.