Return of takahē – large, flightless bird – to alpine slopes of the South Island marks a conservation victory in New Zealand

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.

  • StorksforlegsEnglish
    12•2 years ago

    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.

  • @anon6789@beehaw.orgOP
    6•2 years ago

    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.

    • livEnglish
      7•2 years ago

      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.

      • @anon6789@beehaw.orgOP
        3•2 years ago

        Thank you! Those are some pretty significant facts. I’ve got much to learn about things over there!

        • livEnglish
          3•2 years ago

          Thanks for this article, it’s very cool!

  • magnetosphere English
    4•2 years ago

    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?

      • @Devi@beehaw.orgEnglish
        2•2 years ago

        The zanzibar leopard is a good one. Quite pretty too. Millers Grizzled Languar is another.