During our tour around the forest, our guides told us about the environmental history of New Zealand, which I found pretty fascinating.
New Zealand has exactly one species of native mammal: a bat. That's it. Before human settlement, New Zealand was an island owned and run by birds. Countless numbers of bird species - so many of them that European explorers reported being able to hear birdsong two miles out to sea. (Even today, sometimes I am woken up early in the morning by the songs of birds out my window.) Because there were few predators on the ground, many of these birds are flightless.
Maori settlers hunted a few bird species to extinction, but the biggest hit came when Europeans brought rats, rabbits, possums and stoats to the island. Without any natural predators they quickly overran the place. And in the case of rats, possums and stoats, they became extremely aggressive and began eating native birds and bird eggs. Many of New Zealand's bird species, including their beloved kiwi birds, are seriously endangered.
This zipline course is run by an environmental group, which uses the profits from the zipline tours to run a campaign of genocide against these invasive species. They set hundreds of traps in this forest for possums, rats and stoats. They showed us how these traps work, and even proudly showed us photos of dozens of dead possums and rat bodies lined up on a sidewalk, the results of their first week of efforts. "We even caught a stoat!" they pointed out, very proudly.
When you think of environmental conservation, you don't usually think of slaughtering animals. But in New Zealand, that's what it means. And judging by the amount of roadkill I see on the highways, Kiwi motorists are certainly doing their part.
Anyway. We got to zip upside-down, which was pretty awesome. I felt like Spiderman.
Afterwards Jasson and I went to a local bakery where we splurged on a gigantic soft pretzel.
It was so good. I don't know about Jasson, but for me personally this soft pretzel has been the highlight of my New Zealand experience so far.
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