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Each year rats cause extensive damage to the macadamia nut
industry in Queensland and northern NSW. Poisoning, shooting and trapping are
easy but, in the long term, ecologically undesirable ways to get rid of the
pest. Researchers from the School of Natural Resource Sciences at the University
of Queensland are experimenting with a new method of control. It is called
habitat manipulation. At Maleny in Queensland, a rodent habitat of lantana and
other noxious weeds, which adjoins a macadamia orchard, has been converted into
an area of short grasslands. The experiment is not finished but early results
indicate that changing the habitat leads to a decline in rodent numbers because
they don’t like living in the new habitat.