Mice as big as rats that eat albatross chicks from the inside out are next on the radar of Wanaka helicopter pilot and aerial pest exterminator Peter Garden.
Mr Garden returned recently from a two-week stay on Gough Island in the South Atlantic, which is home to the critically endangered Tristan albatross.
Mr Garden said mice had lived on Gough Island for about 200 years, but about 15 years ago the rodents learned how to burrow into the bottoms of the relatively immobile chicks as they sat in their nests.
They then proceed to eat the insides of the chicks. With this new source of protein, the mice had grown to the size of Pacific rats found in New Zealand and Mr Garden said the mouse predation meant 90% of chicks did not survive.
He hopes funding of up to $8.5 million can be found to allow a poisoning programme to be carried out within the next couple of years.
Gough Island (6500ha) is part of the British overseas territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha.
Its only human inhabitants are a small number of meteorologists.
Mr Garden is one of those who have been investigating the potential to run a mouse-eradication programme on behalf of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
But because the island is 2300km from the South African coast it is very expensive to get to.
And, poisoning mice requires a much more intensive aerial programme than for rats, because mice do not travel as far as rats do.
Mr Garden, who turned 67 this week, said he hoped he would get the chance to work on the Gough Island eradication programme and that it would lead to similar programmes on two other islands.
In 2015 he is expecting to return to the South Atlantic island of South Georgia to complete a rat-poisoning operation there.
