kakapo no. Unless you do a volunteer stint for several weeks on Codfish island during the breeding season when they provide supplementary feeding, monitor the nests, etc. Last year a spare bird was put on Ulva Island (off Stewart Island) for a month or so and the public could view him for a few hours each day). Unfortunately I was in Asia at the time :-( As for takahe, they are on display at the DoC breeding facility at Mt. Bruce (north of Wellington) and at another facility near Te Anau (in Fiordland). There are no current plans for advocacy birds to be displayed at other zoos. Wild birds can be seen on various islands to which they have been relocated (the easiest are Kapiti off Wellington and Tiritiri Matangi off Auckland). The true wild population in Fiordland is in an area off-limits to the general public.
here's a picture I just took the other day of one of the "original" takahe (from 1898), which is on display at the Otago Museum in Dunedin
its actually a really well-preserved specimen for its age. But live birds are fantastic, really vibrant green and purple plumage
When I get to make the big trip to NZ I definitely want to see takahes, I remember reading about the first eggs being taken which were transported under highly tenacious bantams on the backs of ponys. Have you seen any live ones? How do they compare in size to swamp hens, which to my European eyes are like huge aggressive moorhens?
nope, Auckland zoo has participated (probably still does) in the artificial incubation of kakapo eggs, with the chicks being returned to Codfish island when a bit older. EDIT: I just read in this same thread (page two I think) that Auckland Zoo doesn't rear kakapo anymore. DoC does this at Burwood Bush near Te Anau (also where the takahe are bred, as I mentioned earlier). The only place that has kept and tried tried breeding kakapo in captivity (apart for the many kept in captivity in past centuries, including birds that were sent over to England) is the DoC breeding facility at Mt. Bruce, which was originally set up for the takahe with their bantam foster-mums. Unfortunately all the kakapo turned out to be male and only one survived more than a year (this was in the early 1960s when the only known remaining birds were in Fiordland, and all of these were male as it transpired).
"How do they compare in size to swamp hens, which to my European eyes are like huge aggressive moorhens?" sorry about the quality of the photo (flash not allowed), but here's a comparison of the skeletons of takahe on left and pukeko (purple gallinule or swamphen to non-NZers) on right, taken at the Otago Museum. The takahe as you can see is massive compared to the pukeko although the height difference isn't much so. The stuffed bird in front is a pukeko.
The total population is 86 birds; 64 of them are on Codfish. Here's a recent link The Otago Daily Times, Online Edition
One of the flamingo's has been nesting within the last few weeks, when I first noticed one of the keepers did too, stopped and was very excited..!
When you say its been nesting do you mean just trying to build a nest? Flamingoes often do this in the years before actually breeding. Its sort of like practice runs I guess. Good news though, and it may even result in an egg. (Let's hope!)
Yes nestbuilding, just on the edge where the water meets the mud (additionally the nests have been in two different places both times I have been there, which I'm guessing isn't a good sign for this batch)...
Chlidonias, How many takahe are there left in the wild? Are they just in Fiordland or some more spaces too? Do wild birds suffer from egg predation by introduced non natives? Are there any predator eradication programmes going in NZ for takahe? Is Mount Bruce the only captive facility to try to breed them and augment the wild population?
there are about 240 takahe today. The main population is in Fiordland at the original (re-)discovery site. There was an attempt at establishing a second population in a nearby mountain range but it was largely unsuccessful. Several island populations have been established, particularly on Kapiti (near Wellington) and Tiritiri Matangi (near Auckland). All takahe -- captive, island and Fiordland -- are treated as one population for management purposes (this is often the case with NZ's endangered species, so individuals are moved here or there to spread genes around, etc). Mt. Bruce (the National Wildlife Centre) is a facility north of Wellington that is operated by DoC (that's the Department of Conservation) as a breeding station for many NZ species. It is open to the public. I think there may only be one or a couple of pairs of takahe there, for advocacy purposes. However takahe are also being bred at another DoC facility at Burwood Bush near Te Anau in Fiordland. The birds bred here are the ones that are augmenting the wild birds. Some can be viewed at the Te Anau Wildlife Centre. The area where the "true" wild population lives is off-limits to the general public, and is heavily trapped to keep down the numbers of predators and also the deer which eat the same food as the takahe. They are slow breeders, maturing at three years and only laying two eggs. Chick mortality is high, even on the predator-free islands. The adults are so big and feisty they can take care of themselves (there is a record of one decapitating a stoat that was attacking its chick!). When Europeans arrived the takahe was already in a relict distribution in severe decline due to overhunting by the Maori. There are accounts that even though there were pukeko (purple gallinules) everywhere in abundance, Maori parties made special arduous trips into the Fiordland mountains specifically to hunt takahe. Their rarity gave them a special significance as prey. I guess it was of a similar vein to museum collectors deliberately hunting down the last great auks. And finally, there were once two species of takahe. The South Island one and a North Island one which was even bigger (taller but slimmer). Originally they were described as the same species. The North Island species is known only from subfossil bones but there is a tantalising account of what could have been their survival until as late as 1894 (the article is in Notornis 8).
