While heavy rain is seeing tourists stay away, one Rotorua tourist attraction says it has its benefits, with the rat population on the local forest floor dropping to zero per cent.
"We've seen a silver lining — we've seen our rat numbers over the last six months really drop," Rotorua Canopy Tours general manager Paul Button told Breakfast.
"In fact, with our monitoring, we've gone to zero per cent, which is incredible."
Button said pest numbers are monitored through tunnels left on the forest floor. After six weeks, a card with an ink pad — and peanut butter as bait — is placed inside, creating identifying cards for the animals using their footprints.
While the monitoring tunnels showed there are no rats, mice numbers have risen as a result.
"It's incredible. The forest is really healthy but as far as the data we use, it's 0%," he said.
The eco zipline attraction has around 800 traps — including 650 rat traps — spread out across 200 hectares of conservation land.
"The actual pest control is really intense," he said.
"We're removing about 2000 rats a year."
Button said the heavy bouts of rain have helped slow down the rats' reproductive periods.
"The rat will reproduce up to five times a year in the forest — up to eight pups a litter — so if it's slowing down the reproductive cycles, it's just slowing down the rats as the numbers grow," he said.
Competing for food resources has also played a part in the lower numbers.
"We'll continue to remove as many rats as we can," he said.
"New Zealand's in a real biodiversity crisis and the rats really contribute to that."
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