Incredible Australian footage reveals new predator killing city rats
Jenna Bytheway, a senior researcher at Sydney University, led an investigation into the footage, telling Yahoo News she is excited to see the rakali is showing clear signs of actually hunting the smaller rodent as prey.
'Rakali tend to be ambush predators when they're hunting on land or at the water's edge," she said. "In the video, you see it sitting and waiting, and then ambushing. And that suggests it may have been a predatory attack.'
There's little chance that a fixed trail camera would have caught an attack like this unless it was happening regularly. And while it's not known if the rakali caught the black rat, a simple attack could impact the abundance of the pests.
'Given the size and aggressive nature of the rakali compared to the black rat, the impacts and the effects of fear can also reduce the number of rats in an area and change how they behave,' Bytheway said.
Could rakali help fight $390 billion invasive species problem?
The interaction was captured on the banks of Sydney Harbour in 2011 and then archived. But the researchers decided it was time to release the footage now because rakali are facing mounting threats, including the rapid spread of rat lungworm through Queensland and NSW, which originated in southeast Asia and is carried by introduced rats and snails.
Habitat destruction, pollution, and poisoning from common household baits commonly sold at hardware stores and supermarkets are also killing off this important species.
Despite being found in populated areas along Australia's east coast, very little is known about rakali. And more research would be required to determine how widespread their impact is on invasive species.
CSIRO research indicates invasive species have cost Australia more than $390 billion in the last 60 years to 2021. Rats alone continue to cause hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to the agriculture sector every year.
But using second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides to tackle them is killing off the nation's wildlife, including owls and eagles. And scientists are increasingly looking towards natural methods of control, like attracting owls to paddocks to eat rats.
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Bytheway is hopeful that one day, rakali could play a role too. But before that, funding would be required to confirm that what happened in the video wasn't a unique occurrence.
'If we can conserve rakali as a native species, not only will they be performing a vital role in the environment, they might be reducing the impacts of invasive species like black rats, cane toads and invasive fish. It's a win-win for everyone,' Bytheway said.
The research has been published in the journal Australian Mammalogy and featured in The Conversation.
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