Page "Oceania ecozone" Paragraph 7

Malayo-Polynesian settlers brought pigs, dogs, chickens and polynesian rats to many islands ; and had spread across the whole of Oceania by 1200 CE.

From the seventeenth century onwards European settlers brought other animals, including cats, cattle, horses, Small Asian Mongoose ( Herpestes javanicus ), sheep, goats, and the Brown Rat ( Rattus norvegicus ).

These and other introduced species, in addition to overhunting and deforestation, have dramatically altered the ecology of many of Oceania's islands, pushing many species to extinction or near-extinction, or confining them to small islets uninhabited by humans.