In the 1770s, Captain Cook released pigs and goats in New Zealand to feed future sailors. Their descendants still threaten the country's native forests today

When Captain James Cook sailed through New Zealand's Marlborough Sounds during his second and third voyages in the 1770s, he deliberately released pigs and goats into the bush, hoping to establish a self-sustaining source of meat for future European sailors who might pass through the region. Cook could not have known that these animals would go on to multiply far beyond anyone's expectations, spreading across both main islands and eventually causing serious damage to the native forests and wildlife that New Zealand's ecosystems had evolved without any land mammals present at all.

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