Historically, there have been cases where the extermination of animal species has been politically endorsed because the animals have been considered harmful. In some cases the animals have been hunted because the animals present a danger to human lives, at other times they have been hunted because they are harmful to human interests such as

livestock Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to provide labor and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to animals ...

farming Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

. More recently, eradication efforts have focused on invasive vertebrates as they are the leading cause of extinction of native species, particularly on islands. This article refers to animals in a more limited sense; it does not include

humans Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...

. In a number of cases, such government endorsed hunting has led to the endangerment or outright extinction of the species.

Rat

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

, Canada is one of the few non-island places in the world that is free of

brown rat The brown rat (''Rattus norvegicus''), also known as the common rat, street rat, sewer rat, wharf rat, Hanover rat, Norway rat, Norwegian rat and Parisian rat, is a widespread species of common rat. One of the largest muroids, it is a brown o ...

s. Since the early 1950s, the

Government of Alberta The government of Alberta (french: gouvernement de l'Alberta) is the body responsible for the administration of the Canadian province of Alberta. As a constitutional monarchy, the Crown—represented in the province by the lieutenant governor—i ...

has operated a rat-control program, which has been so successful that only isolated instances of wild rat sightings are reported, usually of rats arriving in the province aboard trucks or by rail. A number of islands have had programs to remove introduced rats and improve conditions for native fauna. Some of these islands include: * Breaksea Island and Campbell Island,

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

have successfully eradicated

s. The program was carried out by the

New Zealand Department of Conservation The Department of Conservation (DOC; Māori: ''Te Papa Atawhai'') is the public service department of New Zealand charged with the conservation of New Zealand's natural and historical heritage. An advisory body, the New Zealand Conservation Au ...

(DOC). *

Pinzón Island Pinzón Island (Spanish: ''Isla Pinzón''), sometimes called Duncan Island (after Adam Duncan, 1st Viscount Duncan), is an island in the Galápagos Islands, Ecuador. Pinzón is home to giant Galápagos tortoises of the endemic subspecies '' Chel ...

, one of the

Galápagos Islands The Galápagos Islands (Spanish: , , ) are an archipelago of volcanic islands. They are distributed on each side of the equator in the Pacific Ocean, surrounding the centre of the Western Hemisphere, and are part of the Republic of Ecuador ...

has a rat eradication program which has contributed to a rebound in

Galápagos tortoise The Galápagos tortoise or Galápagos giant tortoise (''Chelonoidis niger'') is a species of very large tortoise in the genus ''Chelonoidis'' (which also contains three smaller species from mainland South America). It comprises 15 subspecies (13 ...

populations there. *

Hawadax Island Hawadax Island ( ale, Hawadax; russian: Крысий) is an island in the Rat Islands archipelago of the western Aleutian Islands in the U.S. state of Alaska. The island was formerly known as Rat Island until May 2012 when it was renamed Hawadax Is ...

in the western

Aleutian Islands The Aleutian Islands (; ; ale, Unangam Tanangin,”Land of the Aleuts", possibly from Chukchi language, Chukchi ''aliat'', "island"), also called the Aleut Islands or Aleutic Islands and known before 1867 as the Catherine Archipelago, are a cha ...

in the US state of Alaska also had a successful rat eradication program in the 2000s.

Thylacine The thylacine ( , or , also ) (''Thylacinus cynocephalus'') is an extinct carnivorous marsupial that was native to the Australian mainland and the islands of Tasmania and New Guinea. The last known live animal was captured in 1930 in Tasman ...

* The thylacine was a

Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...

n predator which was responsible for a significant number of attacks on unconfined livestock, leading to a public sentiment of hostility against the species. A bounty of between 6/- (for fewer than ten kills) and 10/- (for each kill beyond ten) on the thylacine was established by the Van Diemen's Land Co in 1836. In 1888 the government introduced a bounty of £1 for each adult scalp, and 10/- per juvenile, and a number of sheep farmers offered similar rewards. The subsequent slaughter of the animals was a key factor in their extinction.

Tiger The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is the largest living cat species and a member of the genus '' Panthera''. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily preys on u ...

Caspian tiger The Caspian tiger was a ''Panthera tigris tigris'' population native to eastern Turkey, northern Iran, Mesopotamia, the Caucasus around the Caspian Sea, Central Asia to northern Afghanistan, and the Xinjiang region in western China. Until the Midd ...

* In the 1900s (decade) the

Russian government The Government of Russia exercises executive power in the Russian Federation. The members of the government are the prime minister, the deputy prime ministers, and the federal ministers. It has its legal basis in the Constitution of the Russia ...

declared that there is no place for

tiger The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is the largest living cat species and a member of the genus '' Panthera''. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily preys on u ...

s in

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

and

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historically ...

. The Russian army was tasked with the extermination of all tigers in the Caspian Sea area so that farmers could move in. It is unknown whether the Caspian tiger is entirely extinct since there are some reports of sightings in

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

South China tiger The South China tiger is a population of the ''Panthera tigris tigris'' subspecies that is native to southern China. The population mainly inhabited the Fujian, Guangdong, Hunan and Jiangxi provinces. It has been listed as Critically Endanger ...

* In 1950 the population of the South China tiger was approximately 4000. The species was declared a pest by

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...

as part of the

Great Leap Forward The Great Leap Forward (Second Five Year Plan) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) was an economic and social campaign led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1958 to 1962. CCP Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to reconstruc ...

programme and subjected to uncontrolled hunting. This hunting, combined with the ravages of

deforestation Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated d ...

led to the dramatic reduction of the Chinese tiger population. Regulations restricting the hunting of such tigers were implemented during the 1970s but they were not greatly respected. By 1982 their numbers had dwindled to 150–200, and now they are almost extinct in the wild.

Wolf The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, and gray wolves, as popularly u ...

* Wolves are predators which frequently target domestic sheep, a fact which frequently brings sheep farmers who want the wolves gone into conflict with conservationists. In various

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

an countries such as

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

, the wolf was declared a pest and subjected to systematic eradication. In

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

during the

Meiji Period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

, hunting of the wolves in

Hokkaidō is Japan's second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by the undersea railway Seikan Tunnel. The la ...

led to the extinction of the

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

subspecies In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...

.Meiji Modernization, Scientific: Agriculture, and the Destruction of Japan's Hokkaido Wolf
{{webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040926013455/http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/eh/9.2/walker.html , date=2004-09-26 Brett L. Walker The same event happened to the wolf subspecies on

Honshu , historically called , is the largest and most populous island of Japan. It is located south of Hokkaidō across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyūshū across the Kanmon Straits. The island separ ...

Multiple species

New Zealand's Predator Free 2050 aims to eradicate all introduced predators from the islands.

References

Eradication programs

Rat