New Zealand's Bizarre Birds

[Mighty_Emperor]

Bizarre birds

I've dated a few and it seems NZ is chock full of them:

New Zealand a Noah's Ark for Conserving Bizarre Birds

Karin Muller
for National Geographic News
September 21, 2004


When New Zealand split away from the supercontinent Gondwana some 80 million years ago, its flora and fauna were left to develop in isolation.

The result was a virtual Noah's Ark of bizarre animals: Flightless, nocturnal parrots that hike several kilometers at a time; yellow-eyed penguins that nest in forests; and bad-tempered kiwis with skin as tough as shoe leather, poor eyesight, and a highly developed sense of smell.

The red-fronted or red-crowned parkeet, also known as the kakariki, once common on both of New Zealand's main islands, is now quite rare over large parts of its range. Scientists are attempting to save birds like this one by translocating them to offshore islands free of introduced predators like rats, cats, stoats, and weasels.

Living in a paradise without predators, these odd species thrived. But when the first human settlers, the Maoris, arrived about a thousand years ago, the rats and dogs they brought with them wreaked havoc on the islands' wildlife. Europeans arrived in the early 1800s, bringing with them mustelids (stoats, ferrets, and weasels), cats, and two more species of rats. In addition to the threats posed by newly introduced predators, imported goats, sheep, and cattle competed with the native animals for food.

New Zealand's native bird populations plummeted.

"Land clearance has removed the majority of habitat available," said Doug Armstrong, senior lecturer in wildlife ecology at Massey University in Auckland. "But there would still be habitat to support good populations of all bird species, I think, if it wasn't for introduced predators."

Conservationists working to protect and restore these populations determined that the only way to save New Zealand's threatened bird species was to move them to predator-free offshore islands. Don Merton is a senior technical officer at New Zealand's Department of Conservation. Ha said there have been 198 translocation projects involving 34 bird species to 75 offshore islands since the 1890s.

Creating Predator-Free Environments

Turning an island into a sanctuary is harder than it sounds. One can't just drop off a dozen hihi birds, wish them luck, and hope that they survive.

"The key is to develop a working theory on what caused the original extirpation, [and determine] whether those factors are still operating, and what management is required to have a viable population," Armstrong, the Massey University wildlife ecologist, said.

Before embarking on a translocation project, scientists must first learn everything possible about a target species, from mapping out their historical home range to identifying nesting preferences. Once a species' needs are known, clearing an island of introduced predators and restoring its natural habitat can be a mammoth task. If the population comes from captive stock, the birds must be taught how to survive in the wild.

If the birds are captured in the wild, scientists must ensure that populations are genetically compatible with existing populations and that the original population is not being depleted.

Once the animals are safely established, they must be monitored. Scientists keep careful statistics on the abundance, survival, and reproduction of a population to determine whether they can sustain themselves.

In New Zealand, there are issues beyond the typical scientific concerns to address. The Tangata Whenua—the Maori tribes with traditional connections to the area—must be consulted. And since the animals are so unusual, so too are the challenges.

"The kakapo are particularly vulnerable to predators, because they are flightless, smelly, and attempt to a avoid predators by sitting still," Graeme Elliot, a scientist on the National Kakapo Team at the New Zealand Department of Conservation, said. "Worse yet, they breed only when the rimu tree goes into fruit—an event that occurs, on average, every 23 to 25 years."

In addition, female kakapos don't start breeding until they are 9 to 11 years old. (See Sidebar)

Sometimes, even if conditions seem exactly right, the project still ends in heartbreak.

After exhaustive planning and preparation, the hihi bird was reintroduced to Mokaia Island in 1994. Despite intensive management and supplemental feeding, the population languished. Many birds died, and eventually the surviving ones were translocated elsewhere. A fungal disease that was particularly virulent on Mokaia Island was eventually identified as a major source of mortality.

Saving Species, One Population at a Time

Thankfully, New Zealand's efforts to save its endangered bird species are largely qualified success stories.

In 1980, due to habitat destruction and predation, only five black robins remained in the entire world. Worse yet, only one was a breeding female. Today the black robin population exceeds 250 birds. The takahe, once thought extinct, now has a population of 120 birds.

The saddleback, a black wattlebird with a tan saddle of feathers on its back and a pendulous orange wattle at the base of its bill, has been translocated 27 times since 1925 and now inhabits approximately 16 islands. The bird—once on the very edge of extinction—is now on the lowest, safest rung of the international Red List of endangered species, and is considered a stabilized population.

The flightless, smelly kakapo, once all but extinct, has been nurtured and rebounded to become a thriving population of 83. Each bird has been named: Richard Henry is the grand old male who likes to be tickled under the chin. Sinbad is a fastidious bird with unusually tidy eating habits. Felix is named after a brand of cat food, which is what it would have been if it had been left on Stewart Island. Zephyr, the most productive female, seems to have a thing for Felix, who is the father of five of the female's chicks.

As successes mount, New Zealand's conservationists are starting to reintroduce their charges to New Zealand's mainland. The obstacles are substantial.

"Dispersal is the main one," said Colin Miskelly, a technical support manager at the New Zealand Department of Conservation. "Also restrictions on predator control methods due to multiple land uses and legislative constraints."

In several areas, high-tech fences have been erected and special dogs and ferrets have been used to clear predators out.

In the next few weeks, saddlebacks will be released in Boundary Stream Scenic Reserve on the eastern edge of the Maungaharuru range on the North Island of the New Zealand mainland.

"This will be the first attempt for some time to bring a Red-Listed species back to an unfenced mainland area," Armstrong said.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/09/0921_040921_newzealand_birds.html

 

[hedgewizard1]

Um, isn't the Kakariki the parrot that likes to eat the fat around sheeps' kidneys, and is fairly adept at getting the fat while teh sheep are still alive? Seems that Gerald Durrell wrote something about how angry sheep farmers were the main predator.

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Not sure where to put this and moa is too short to search for but this seems like the best place:

DNA puts new spin on moa extinction

AFP
November 11, 2004

IN the history of Man's damage to the environment, the moa, the biggest bird that ever lived, typically gets a small chapter all to itself. The moa story usually unfolds like a morality tale.

Once upon a time, the ostrich-like creature skipped around happy, free and populous in the Land of the Long White Cloud -- "Aotearoa," the Maori name for New Zealand.

Then, one fateful day some 700 years ago, the first humans arrived.

The settlers, Polynesians reputed to have travelled by canoe from Hawaii, found the wingless bird easy to kill and, at up to 3.5m high and 250kg in weight, a bountiful source of meat.

Within a couple of centuries, the Maori had hunted the hapless feathery giant to extinction.

The moa became, like the dodo, a symbol of human greed or -- to use modern parlance -- an outstanding example of unsustainable development.

But a new study by molecular sleuths raises some big doubts about this cosy parable, for it questions whether the Maori were so catastrophically to blame.

The moa, it suggests, was already sharply in decline before humans arrived, and was deeply vulnerable even before the first spear was thrown.

Biologists led by Neil Gemmell of New Zealand's University of Canterbury took mitochondrial DNA (genetic material that is handed down through the maternal line) from the preserved bones of Dinornis, the largest of the 10 moa species.

They then put this sequence through a computer model based on mutational change, a phenomenon that occurs with each generation as a result of population intermingling.

By examining these small genetic shifts, scientists can turn the molecular clock backwards to see how a species evolves over time.

And they can also extrapolate the species' population: the bigger the population, the wider the genetic variation.

After crunching the moa's data, Gemmell's team arrived at what they call "a cautiously low" estimate of the bird's numbers.

As little as 1000 years ago, there were probably hundreds of thousands of Dinornis moa in New Zealand. Make an estimate for the nine other moa species, and it is likely that, between 1000 and 6000 years ago, there were typically between three million and 12 million moas on the country's North and South Islands, the researchers say.

That compares with a moa population previously estimated at paltry 159,000 at the time when humans first set foot on Aotearoa, an event estimated to have taken place at around 1280.

So why did the the moa population crash before human settlement?

Here, Gemmell throws up a brace of novel theories.

One is that volcanic eruptions -- but not climate change, for which there is no compelling evidence -- repeatedly wiped out local moa communities, especially around Lake Taupo, in the heart of New Zealand's North Island.

But a more persuasive explanation is that moa numbers were ravaged by epidemics of disease, such as avian flu, salmonella or tuberculosis, brought by migrating birds from Australia and elsewhere.

There was the chance that the species could have rebounded if humans had not intervened, eroding its habitat and reducing its numbers further by hunting, the authors say.

But the evidence is that the moa's demise "is complex and veiled by time" rather than a simple, one-track conclusion, says the study, which appears on Wednesday in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a weekly journal published by Britain's science academy.

"If our new estimates of moa numbers are correct then we need to reconsider the factors that might have influenced these populations prior to the arrival of humans, perhaps gaining greater insight into modern conservation problems from the lessons of the past."

------------------
AFP

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,11361321%5E30417,00.html

 

[Anonymous]

Um, isn't the Kakariki the parrot that likes to eat the fat around sheeps' kidneys, and is fairly adept at getting the fat while teh sheep are still alive? Seems that Gerald Durrell wrote something about how angry sheep farmers were the main predator.

No, kakariki are small green parakeets, common in captivity. Kakapo is the very rare, nocturnal flightless parrot. Kea is the fat/flesh eating parrot from New Zealand, they are persecuted by farmers although it is not proven they attack live animals. They are very intelligent and playful, and will investigate cars, often pulling the trims of with their powerful beak.