Hawaiian Goose. Formerly Endangered, now common in private collections and re-established in reasonable numbers (though not without issues) in the wild. Freely traded and a perfect avicultural subject.
The wild population reintroduced into Hawaii is stageringly low and far from sustainable I am afraid.
.....but something over 2000, sufficient for its recent downgrading to a Threatened from Endangered. Not bad, when the total world population was down to less than fifty birds in the late 1940s.
This is exactly what I meant! It is far from a robust self-sustaining population and look at historical distribution and numbers before humankind started impacting the species and creating the conditions that made it almost go extinct in the wild in the first place. In my view as conservationists we should never be content with recovery in numbers in the low thousands of any endangered taxon full stop. Let us leave the discussion at that (otherwise a move into its own thread is the logical course of action).
Not even a taxa whose natural populations was never as high as this, such as perhaps the Laysan Teal?
The current population estimated at 500-700 individuals on 10KM2. As to population numbers: Do you mean before the slaughter by man and the introduction of rabbits to the Laysan archipelago?
... you choose! - but why draw the line there? Why stop there and not go back further? - because presumably the population on a newly formed volcanic island would have either been zero, or just a few wind blown stragglers of another species, and certainly well below a few thousand. My point was that an arbitrary figure of a 'few thousand', followed by a 'full stop' was somewhat ambiguous.. Laysan was just illustrative.
Andrew, I mean realistically as in historical evidence based. This infers not when an island first developed, but when the ecosystem was by present-day standards still intact and the island floras and faunas would have been in a somewhat pristine state (unravished by the hands of mankind and extractive development and destruction). Probably we would be looking at the early 1800's or even only at the onset of the first "discoveries" by North civilisations (the latter for lack of a better word ...). It has most recently been made into a science of its own.
I think you and I are coming at this from slightly different perspectives. You are quite rightly concerned that Nene numbers in the wild still need support, and are nowhere near pre-colonisation levels. To illustrate where I'm coming from, let me share my Fantasy Zoo Exhibit, signed No Second Chances, and comprising three enclosures.... 1/ Empty enclosure, signed 'Dodo'. Enclosure contains appropriate terrain & vegetation, and graphics explaining that, although the species was kept in Europe, nobody tried to breed it, and certainly nobody considered the possibility of extinction. 2/ Empty enclosure, signed 'Passenger Pigeon'. Appropriate habitat, graphics explaining how the species was bred in numbers in Europe, to the extent that some people had so many they were letting the damn things out.......a few decades later and it was gone. 3/ Enclosure for a pair of Nene! Graphic explains that this species was being bred in Europe at the same time as the Passenger Pigeon, but the stock was allowed to dwindle, and the last one perished in the Second World War. Fortunately a small captive flock on Hawaii provided foundation stock for a Wildfowl Trust propagation initiative, and we know the rest. Here there WAS a second chance! My feelings about the current Nene situation are coloured by a tremendous relief that we still have this wonderful species and it didn't go the way of the other two. Obviously we still have a long way to go, but at least we still have the thing! See where I'm coming from?
Exquisite response - what a great idea! As it happens, Paignton have just the space available to create your vision!!
I understand where most are content having managed to save a species from inevitable extinction by mankind. It should be clear from my discourse I am nowhere near content with just that and a nowhere near safe population of a threatened taxon. Further, to look at our Life on Planet Earth being content with the current state of affairs with our environment, biodiversity, climate change, pollution, habitat destruction and species extinctions and threats, hence being content is the anomaly and anathema to my world views: I remain happy in this guilty as charged. If and when we have fixed and repaired our collective destructive behaviours I will be contented, but only then. And I do think we all need to take our responsibilities in this very seriously as we are all partially guilty for the very sorry state our only livable Planet is in. So far, so good .... separate threat please!
I think that is an excellent idea for a display. Some zoo somewhere should definately take it up. And (without looking it up) the name of the chap who had the captive Nenes in Hawaii was....?
Herbert Shipman, but I had to look it up... Next question. Peter Scott's initial pair imported from Shipman's small flock turned out to be both females. What was the name of the gander Shipman sent to join them in order to start Slimbridge's success?
It was a Hawaiian name, I think from a famous or legendary king - I'm taking a wild guess at Kamehameha. But that is just as likely to be a wrasse or a honeycreeper
I'm surprising myself I just checked the Wildfowl Trust Annual Report for 1951-2 (on-line). The females were called Emma and Kaiulani (both Hawaiian queens) and 9 goslings were reared in 1952, the year after Kamehameha arrived.
