The British "New Scientist" weekly website published a report entitled "New Zealand becomes the first country to eliminate invasive butterflies".

New Zealand has become the first country to successfully eradicate an invasive butterfly species.

The cabbage butterfly is native to Europe, Africa, and Asia. The butterfly was first spotted in New Zealand in 2010. The government quickly launched an extermination program to protect crops from these invaders.

Before turning into butterflies, cabbage butterfly larvae eat a lot of Brassica crops, including cabbage, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts. It will also eat 79 species of cress plants native to New Zealand, 57 of which are at risk of extinction.

Jani Cronin, from the New Zealand Department of Conservation, said: "These swarms of larvae eat a variety of host plants, will completely eat the leaves of a plant, and then fly more than 100 meters to find another plant. "Without swift intervention, the butterfly is expected to quickly spread across the country.

New Zealand's Department of Conservation conducted more than 263,000 searches on 29,000 homes in Nelson, South Island, where the pest was first discovered, in order to remove them. The species is thought to have arrived at the city's port by boat.

To encourage children to join the effort to eradicate the butterfly, the Department of Conservation also ran a NZ$10 reward for each cabbage butterfly carcass turned in during the 2013 school spring break. Wasps that attack the cabbage butterfly were also released in 2015 to promote efforts to eradicate the butterfly.

Since the end of the NZ$3 million campaign, careful searches have not turned up any cabbage butterflies.

"We are confident that we can declare them eradicated," the primary industries minister said.

"It would be a plausible statement if no cabbage butterflies were found for two consecutive years with intensive searches," said Myron Zawutsky of the University of Queensland in Australia. The success is likely due to the timely culling of these butterflies. In countries where the harmful butterfly is widespread, such as Australia and the United States, it has been impossible to eradicate them.

New Zealand's campaign to eradicate the cabbage butterfly is part of a larger plan to eradicate all invasive pest species. In July, the government announced it would also eradicate rats, stoats, and possums by 2050.