Before the shootings there were 22 birds on Motutapu Island, one of the conservation department’s predator-free “security sites”.
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“It beggars belief that four endangered takahe were killed by incompetent cullers contracted to the department”.
The department has said that hunters had been carefully briefed on how to differentiate between the species, with takahē about twice the size of pukeko, and flightless. They were also ordered to only shoot birds on the wing.
However, authorities revealed that it was also not the first time such an incident had happened.
According to Baucke, the cull of over-populated pukeko was being conducted by the “experienced members” of the local deerstalkers association in Motutapu sanctuary.
The department has put an immediate halt to the cull as it investigates both its internal processes and the program with the deerstalkers’ association, which it says is “cooperating fully” with its inquiries.
There are only about 300 takahe birds left in the world, and the killings have angered Maori groups who agreed to allow the rare birds to be moved to Motutapu for conservation purposes, local media said. It was thought to be extinct until a bird was rediscovered in 1948.
“There are even calls for the return home of those birds”.
Pukekos are as common and ducks and geese and because they are a highly aggressive species they are considered a threat to rare native bird species.
“We see these deaths as a setback”. Maud, Mana, Kapiti, Tiritiri Matangi and Motutapu islands (sanctuaries). “I apologize to the department and to the country at large”, he told New Zealand Herald.
The New Zealand Deerstalkers’ Association (NZDA) president Bill O’Leary said he was “appalled” by these accidental deaths.
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The bird has a distinctive red beak and petrol blue feathers Takahe are officially marked as a “critically endangered species” and have been subject to a conservation programme of considerable expense in the country for the last 11 years. “I trust that this tragic incident will not harm the generally positive relationship we have with the Department of Conservation”, said Mr O’Leary.
