My favorite book by the late Douglas Adams is "Last Chance to See," a nonfiction project where he travelled around the world for a year looking for various endangered species. The chapter about a fat sort of parrot called the kakapo talks about the challenges of keeping rats out — boats are not even allowed to dock on the New Zealand island where the last remaining kakapo live.

(I once emailed Adams asking when a paperback edition of this book would be made available; he replied three years later, saying that it was finally in print behind "the ugliest cover I've ever seen in my life." The contemporary cover is not quite so bad.)

https://www.amazon.com/Last-Chance-See-Douglas-Adams/dp/0345...

Its worth remembering Doug Adam's book on endangered species he wrote late in life: http://www.amazon.com/Last-Chance-See-Douglas-Adams/dp/03453...

Fondly remember meeting him briefly at the big bookstore near ULU in London to sign it when it was released.

Sometimes I regret I gave it to my then-girlfried ;)

http://www.amazon.com/Last-Chance-See-Douglas-Adams/dp/03453...