Science Media Centre

News broke last night that the US military’s science research agency has funded research into gene drives, including to a group that includes New Zealanders. Documents released to media from a lobby group suggest the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has become the world’s largest funder of gene drive research, putting $100m into the technology. […]

On World Wildlife Day, Victoria University of Wellington’s Dr Wayne Linklater writes in the Dominion Post about his thoughts on the “native good, exotic bad” message. An excerpt (read in full): I don’t like my children being provoked to kill for conservation. And I don’t like them being taught to demonise an entire species of animal, […]

Nearly six months ago the Government announced it would aim for a Predator Free New Zealand by 2050. We asked experts about the tools needed to pull off the audacious plan and what the hurdles to success might be. Please feel free to use these comments in your reporting. – Professor Neil Gemmell, University of Otago […]

Press feature writer Will Harvie visited Marlborough’s Bottle Rock Peninsula to take a look at a research project aiming to maintain the peninsula as a predator-free haven using lines of traps instead of fencing. The ‘virtual barrier’ – 600 metres wide and 2 kilometres long – allows the team at Zero Invasive Predators to research […]