Abstract for presentation at Biodiversity Extinction Crisis Conference - A Pacific Response

Extinction is the opposite of most conservation efforts. Eradication is often the aim of some conservation efforts, albeit of a different species. The outcome of extinction or eradication is the same yet the two concepts have been the subject of little comparative research. This paper compares and contrasts the ecological basis underlying extinction and eradication to determine if scientists studying one or the other can learn from each others’ experiences.

Extinction has been viewed as the outcome of external forces pushing a population to zero abundance (the declining population paradigm) and as the outcome of internal factors pulling a population down (the small population paradigm). In contrast, eradication is seen as an effect of external forces and criteria have been proposed that need to be met for successful eradication. Those criteria appear not to have been applied to the process of extinction. This paper examines the different approaches.

The ecological knowledge required to study and manage extinction and eradication are similar; knowledge of population growth rates, the demographic determinants of the growth rates, and the extrinsic and intrinsic determinants of the demographic rates. However few studies of extinction or eradication formalise these steps. Case studies are discussed for farmland birds and introduced mammals.