In Europe, wasps are just a nuisance, but in the beech forest of New Zealand, where numbers have reached plague proportions, they are an environmental catastrophe.  Native birds, like the kaka, have managed to cling to their existence on the mainland despite the presence of immigrant killers, like the stoat; may now succumb as wasps join the bandit hordes and a last great wave of extinction sweeps across the country.                           

This is the story of the scientist’s campaign to rid the island of its rat population.