Living with introduced animals: A study of multi-species entanglement on Rarotonga, Cook Islands

Islands are particularly vulnerable to the effects of introduced animals, particularly invasive ones. While the eradication of invasive animals is becoming increasingly common on unpopulated islands, it is rare on those with relatively large human populations. When it has occurred, it has resulted in social conflict. The populated island of Rarotonga, the largest island in the Cook Islands, faces ecological, economic, and social threats from the invasive and other introduced animals that live there. Among them are invasive rats and mice, Indian myna birds, roaming chickens, non-domesticated (or ‘feral’) cats, free-to-roam dogs, and escaped livestock. Together they damage human possessions, infrastructure, and crops, and have negative impacts on wildlife and the island’s important tourism industry. However, some also have benefits for humans. Some wandering chickens, for example, end up on the dinner table.

This thesis aims to understand the relationships between people and introduced animals on Rarotonga and the implications of these relationships for hypothetical animal control and eradication programs. To do this, this study considers how the people of Rarotonga conceptualise introduced animals, and how they live with them in domestic, agricultural production, and touristic settings. It demonstrates how living with a range of both invasive and sometimes problematic introduced animals is difficult, and that relationships are multifaceted and ever-evolving. It explores how introduced animals transgress human boundaries and human norms of behaviour, and what happens when this occurs. It then examines how control is practised and prioritised, while revealing potential barriers and opportunities for hypothetical animal control and management programs.

By using a human and social dimensions approach to living with introduced animals (including invasive ones) together with a more-than-human relational approach, this study considers the perceptions, attitudes, and behaviours of diverse human stakeholders towards these animals, while also focusing attention in more depth on the relationships that are formed between people and animals. By using both of these approaches, this research provides a useful framework for understanding the entanglement of people and introduced animals on Rarotonga.

The methodological approach I take is a qualitative one. It includes semi-structured interviews, a focus group discussion, and several ‘go along’ walking and driving interviews to develop insights into the worldviews and experiences of participants. By including both Polynesian and non-Polynesian laypeople householders, landowners, hospitality representatives, and tourists, as well as Government agency and NGO representatives in this research, a range of local understandings, opinions, and experiences are illustrated.

Three key findings are presented. Firstly, this thesis shows that people identify, categorise, and conceptualise animals in different ways and that people see animal belonging through different lenses. This can often be culturally specific. Different worldviews can lead to conflict when animal management programs are proposed or actioned. Secondly, it reveals that the transgression of ‘human spaces’ by introduced animals is an ongoing dynamic that leads to human and animal conflict and adaption. Together with introduced animals transgressing accepted human norms of behaviour, spatial transgression can lead to people pursuing lethal control methods for the animals involved. Thirdly, this research shows that invasive species control priorities differ between laypeople and both NGO and Government agency participants on the island. It also demonstrates how the control of introduced animals by both laypeople and some NGO and Government agency participants — which often involves killing — is ongoing, open-ended, confronting, precarious, and only partially effective.

Rarotonga’s human population includes both Indigenous Polynesians and non-Indigenous people, and this study explores both Indigenous and non-Indigenous perceptions, attitudes, behaviours, and relationships with introduced animals. This research argues that it is vital that NGOs and government agencies on Rarotonga (and elsewhere) recognise the value of both layperson and Indigenous knowledge and perspectives to ensure smoother outcomes for major interventions targeting invasive animals. Any such action would also need to negotiate the significant complex and entangled nature of Rarotonga and move ahead in a careful, considered way, with laypeople being engaged and consulted at every stage. Only then is there a possibility of minimising social conflict.