Pink Triangles Everywhere

Every 300 feet or so throughout the South Island, you'll see a little pink triangle. You'll see them nailed to trees on hiking trails, or affixed to road markers or posts along the highway.


These triangles aren't there to indicate that New Zealand is gay friendly--although from everything we can tell it is--these are signs for marking the location of a nearby stoat trap.

Stoats are one of the "introduced" species here; they are sort of like weasels or ferrets. The New Zealand government brought them here in order to control the exploding rabbit population on the islands, which, unfortunately, was yet another introduced species.

Unfortunately, the stoats found it a lot easier to ignore the rabbits and instead prey on the slow, docile and defenseless bird species here, many of which had never met a predator in millions of years. Many of New Zealand's birds had become slow, and in many cases flightless, after so many years of easy island life, with near-total protection from predation.

No one knows how many bird species were wiped out here as a result. In fact, New Zealand holds the dubious record for the most species extinctions by a single country in the world.

But this country is making up for the sins of its past by establishing countless breeding sites and wildlife sanctuaries throughout the islands. And New Zealand is finally getting on top of their stoat population, largely thanks to these traps. Several major islands in Fiordland have become essentially stoat-free, enabling many of the at-risk bird species to recover.