New Zealand's Flightless Takahe being Nurtured by Researchers
7/8/98
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Title: New Zealand's Flightless Takahe being Nurtured by Researchers
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyrighted, contact source to reprint
Date: 7/8/98
Byline: Marion Rae
TE ANAU, New Zealand, July 8 (Reuters) - New Zealand's flightless takahe is
edging away
from the brink of extinction, with a little help from its friends.
The endangered bird, thought to be extinct until its rediscovery 50 years ago,
is being
carefully nurtured by researchers at New Zealand's Fiordland National Park
through an
artificial chick-rearing program.
The takahe, unique to New Zealand, is an aberration.
It evolved from the alpine rail, which arrived in the country by chance
thousands of
years ago, and become a flightless bird due to the abundance of food and absence
of
ground-dwelling mammals and predators in the remote bush-clad land.
``Compare the woolly mammoth to elephants and you'll get an idea of how ancient
these
birds really are,'' Southland-based Department of Conservation spokesman Tom
O'Connor
told Reuters. Southland is the southernmost region of New Zealand and its
conservation
lands are among the most rugged in the world.
The Fiordland National Park, the largest in the country and one of the largest
in the
world, covers 1.2 million hectares.
Fiordland was well-known to the indigenous Maori and there are many legends
about its
formation and naming. Demi-god Tuterakiwhanoa is said to have carved the rugged
landscape
from formless rock.
SAVING THE FLIGHTLESS BIRD
In the mountains of Fiordland, the last natural population of takahe is being
given a
helping hand through an artificial chick-rearing programme.
Artificial incubation of eggs and rearing of chicks is carried out at the
Burwood Rearing
Unit near the lakeside township of Te Anau.
A huge effort is made to prevent the chicks from identifying too closely, or
imprinting,
on their human foster parents.
Contact is kept to a minimum with the use of artificial hands, and recordings of
wild
birds are played to the eggs as they hatch and to the chicks when they are being
fed.
Puppet models are used as surrogate takahe for feeding, and one-way glass is
used in
rearing pens.
The bird is related to the common pukeko or swamp hen, which is found throughout
the
Pacific.
The rare takahe stands out from its more common relative because of its green
and blue --
rather than black and blue -- plumage and its larger body mass.
An adult stands about 50 cm (20 inches) tall and weighs between two kg (one lb)
and 3.5
kg, with males being heavier than females but otherwise looking the same.
They live in pairs, but occasionally form threesomes.
Takahe prefer grasslands and hold the same territory year to year, except in
mountainous
areas where snow forces some birds down to sub-alpine scrub or forest in search
of the
summer green fern, Hypolepis millefolium.
PROTECTED POPULATION
The number of takahe in Fiordland's Murchison Mountains remains low, despite
intensive
management - 107 adult birds were found over the 1996/97 summer, including 41
pairs.
The mountains were made a special area earlier this century, after the takahe's
rediscovery in November 1948 by Dr Geoffrey Orbell. Entry is by permit only.
Fifteen juvenile birds took their chances in the wild in October last year after
being
released from the rearing unit.
Ten chicks were surviving in the wild in June 1998.
Several offshore islands are home to a further 60-odd birds.
The Takahe Programme came under scrutiny last year following a series of bleak
winters
which kept population numbers low.
The bird has a very low level of productivity which makes the task of
maintaining the
population base a challenge.
The Department of Conservation found that basic assumptions about the takahe
were
untested.
Stoats, opossums and weka (scavenging birds) are possible predators, but their
influence
on the long-term survival of the takahe is unclear.
This issue could be resolved by a plan to follow the tracks of radio-tagged
takahe and
conduct more field work on mortality.
``We're now testing out transmitters on chickens,'' said Dave Crouchley, Takahe
Programme
leader and senior conservation officer. Much trial and error would follow before
unique
transmitters were fitted to released takahe, he added.
WEIRD, WILD WILDERNESS
The native vegetation of the southern conservation lands provides a refuge for
many
unique plants and animals.
Sealers and whalers of the late 18th century formed New Zealand's first
settlements.
Surveyors, explorers and prospectors began to penetrate the unexplored interior
in the
mid 19th century. Gold was found in the 1890s.
Harsh conditions meant efforts to establish mines, timber mills and farms in the
hinterland were generally short-lived.
Modern day travellers to Fiordland are likely to see -- and hear -- common
forest birds
such as tomtits, brown creepers, grey warblers, fantails, tui, bellbirds and
native
pigeons.
The kakapo, or ``the big, fat, green parrot'' as it is known to
conservationists, once
lived on the mainland but has been installed offshore in an attempt to ensure
its
survival.
The list of national treasures, or taonga, doesn't stop there, however.
The marine environment plays host to the world's biggest population of black
coral trees
-- about seven million colonies, some of them up to 200 years old.
It is also home to brachiopods, which are primitive, clam-like animals that have
been
bypassed by evolution -- unlike the endangered takahe - and remained unchanged
for more
than 300 million years.
Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited.