Exotic Intruders - The Introduction of Plants and Animals into New Zealand

Heinemann 1983 edition, good condition with dust jacket.
When looking at the multitude of foreign animals and plants that have arrived in New Zealand, the natural reaction is to ask: Why were they brought here? Who brought them? And how? The acclimatisation of animals and plants is a fascinating subject, and probably one that can be best studied in New Zealand. The native fauna and flora were well catalogued before early settlement, because of the scholarship of the early explorers. The islands forming New Zealand were isolated for such a long time before their colonisation by man, that the impact of people and their plants and animals was therefore so much more the dramatic. Some imports thrived beyond all expectations. Others became serious pests. And yet others failed to survive in the new country, despite constant dedicated attempts to introduce and cultivate them. This book is the story of these, and also of the people who worked with such dedication to seed the new country with the life of the old, and how optimistic, hard-working and just plain self-indulgent they were. Many of them lived to be maligned, but they were nevertheless the creators of much of New Zealand as we see it today...