2y ago

Prehistoric bird once thought extinct returns to New Zealand wild

www.theguardian.com

In New Zealand, the return of wild takahē populations marks a cautiously celebrated conservation victory, and the return of one of the world’s rarest creatures. The birds had been formally declared extinct in 1898, their already-reduced population devastated by the arrival of European settlers’ animal companions: stoats, cats, ferrets and rats. After their rediscovery in 1948, their numbers are now at about 500, growing at about 8% a year.

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2y ago

Prehistoric bird once thought extinct returns to New Zealand wild

www.theguardian.com /environment/2023/aug/29/prehistoric-bird-once-thought-extinct-returns-to-new-zealand-wild

33 comments

Well it does help when they aren't mistaken for pūkeko...
- That's horrible! What a shame. At least they owned up to doing it, but that had to be devastating to anyone in the recovery effort.
Id hadnt heard of these guys, but learning about them has been neat. Its nice to see an ecological success story.
Look at them! New zealand has the best assortment of small dinosaurs.
One day perhaps they'll be seen again more commonly as is now the case with tui and kererū in some areas.
At 8% they're probably going to outperform KiwiSaver... but maybe not savers of kiwi.
I'm from the US, and usually all we hear about Australia and New Zealand is of the scary, deadly animals. I've been happy to see so many articles on Lemmy about all the work they are doing on endangered animals like this bird and the bandicoots.
I'm also surprised that so many of these programs seem to involve indigenous people. I don't know much about that part of the world, but I wish we would involve our native people in things like this. It feels we still keep ourselves cut off from each other. It makes all these feel good animal stories into feel good people stories.
- New Zealand doesn't really have any deadly animals.
  No scorpions, snakes (other than the very appearance of a sea-snake), crocs, large cats, bears, etc. Our most venomous spiders can generally only make most people a little bit unwell. We might occasionally see a potentially dangerous shark but they're so rare that I can't recall when a notable attack happened.
  Our insects aren't generally disease spreaders - though we've come close a few times to some getting a foothold.
  Colonists introduced many destructive species but nothing very personally dangerous. In theory there could still be moose, but it seems unlikely.
  The only NZ native land-mammal is a tiny bat as far as I know.
  There is the small problem with orcs, goblins, trolls and Australians... but it's okay, we have a wizard (retired?).
  
  How very dare you. Two tiny bats!
  
  Haast's Eagle is said to have sometimes hunted and killed people (it's main prey were moa, so it was definitely physically capable of it) but it's been extinct for like 600 years.
  
  Thank you for all that! As I said, we don't seem to get taught much about that part of the world. LotR is probably the only NZ thing I can recall of the top of my head, which is pretty embarrassing.
- Fun fact: Australia and New Zealand are 2,516 miles apart, and don't share much of the same wildlife.
  The Indigenous people of Aotearoa make up 16% of the population so they are demographically a much larger political and social force than in the US or Australia.
  I've posted several articles about links between various Indigenous cultural traditions and ecological conservation over at !conservative@kbin.social if you're interested.
  
  Thank you! Those are some pretty significant facts. I've got much to learn about things over there!
- The deadly animals are from Australia, not New Zealand.
- It means the species was around for a long time before they thought it went extinct.
  As stated in the article:
  Their presence in Aotearoa dates back to at least the prehistoric Pleistocene era, according to fossil remains.
That’s very, very cool!
I think I’ve read a story or two like this before - where a creature once thought extinct is found again. Does anyone know about how many times or how frequently this has happened?
- The only one I know off the top of my head is the coelacanth that I was thrilled to get to see a preserved one at the Smithsonian.
  Here's some more examples
  There's some more I found. The bird in this article is the prettiest of the list. The others may be a bit underwhelming.
  
  The zanzibar leopard is a good one. Quite pretty too. Millers Grizzled Languar is another.
I don't get the "prehistoric" part.
- In the article:
  Their presence in Aotearoa dates back to at least the prehistoric Pleistocene era, according to fossil remains.
  It just means the species has been around since the prehistoric era.
🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles: ::: spoiler Click here to see the summary Eighteen of the birds were released in the Lake Whakatipu Waimāori valley, an alpine area of New Zealand’s South Island last week, on to slopes they had not been seen roaming for about 100 years.
“Very broad and bold.” Front-on, their bodies can appear almost perfectly spherical – coupled with the blue-green plumage, they look like a model planet Earth perched atop two long, bright red legs.
The birds had been formally declared extinct in 1898, their already-reduced population devastated by the arrival of European settlers’ animal companions: stoats, cats, ferrets and rats.
As trapping efforts have expanded, rare species are being re-introduced outside sanctuary fences: last year kiwi, the national birds, were reintroduced to wild spaces on the outskirts of the city for the first time in generations.
The release on Ngāi Tahu land is an attempt to establish the country’s third wild takahē population – and close collaboration between the government and the Indigenous tribe who will host them.
O’Regan’s father was a keen conservationist, and after a South Island doctor spotted the birds in the Murchison mountains, he attended the second expedition to find them in 1949 – with his young son in tow.
Saved 78% of original text. :::

33 comments