The Takahē, a New Zealand native bird, was rediscovered in 1948, by Dr Geoffrey Orbell. SInce then, the bird has slowly been making a come-back with Department of Conservation assistance.
The population dropped down to 77, back in 2015 when there was a stoat plague, followed by major flood that caused landslides, killing the flightless takahē. These days, the DOC Recovery Programme is using science-based conservation techniques to develop the population.
And so it was, that I had the extraordinary experience of photographing the latest batch of two and three-year-old takahē, being released in the Murchison Mountains. We picked them up from the Burwood Takahē Centre near Te Anau, checked them over and boxed them.
Burwood is where adult takahē teach the young birds skills they will need to survive in the wild. This release group was the highest number released into the Murchison Mountains. The previous highest number was 29 in summer 2015/16.
DOC Takahē Recovery Team senior ranger Glen Greaves says, “The Murchison Mountains has been considered the home of takahē since their rediscovery there in 1948 yet maintaining a robust population at this site has been challenging. Achieving this, while also growing takahē numbers elsewhere, is a true measure of the success of our takahē recovery work.
“After battling for decades to bring the Murchison Mountain population up to its natural limit, maintaining these numbers would be a huge reward for takahē staff past and present, and for our partners Ngāi Tahu and Fulton Hogan, and our supporters.
“We look forward to future surveys showing that takahē have once again occupied long vacant territories around the Murchison Mountains.”
“With the overall takahē population growing at more than 10% a year, other suitable sites with low predator numbers for new wild populations need to be found,” says Glen Greaves.
Note that last photograph. A Kea was keen on checking out the inner workings of the Helicopter … and didn’t move until the pilot climbed right up there and shooed him away.
Source: DOC website.