The two landmasses that make up the bulk of New Zealand–the North Island and the South Island–are less than 25 kilometers apart but couldn’t be more different. The North Island hosts the country’s largest city, Auckland, and is known for towering volcanoes, legendary surfing beaches, and a relatively balmy climate. On the colder and quieter South Island, the rugged landscape is pierced by glassy lakes, rolling glaciers, and snow-capped mountains–familiar backdrops to fans of themovie trilogy.
The rodent riddle deepened in 2019, when researchers at New Zealand’s University of Auckland uncovered the same trend in Norway rats. The South Island’s animals matched with a strain known only from China, while the North Island rats were closest to England’s. King hypothesized that unscrupulous fur traders bypassed Sydney on their way to and from Canton to avoid authorities. “Those who wanted to sidestep the regulations did it very quietly,” she says. Such secretive voyages would have also evaded official record-keeping.
Philippa Mein Smith, a historian at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand who was not involved in the research, says that there is some evidence of nefarious dealings through the port. In 1806, colonial authorities busted Simeon Lord, an ex-convict and sealing entrepreneur based in Sydney, for shipping 87,000 sealskins collected in the Antipodes Islands, south of New Zealand, to Canton via Sydney. But by some small miracle, Lord’s voyage must not have let any rodents loose.
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