New Zealand’s Department of Conservation announced Friday that it has stopped a bird-culling operation after hunters mistakenly killed four critically endangered Takahe birds on Motutapu Island.
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Conservation Minister Maggie Barry said DOC was investigating the shootings.
The Department of Conservation (DoC) yesterday confirmed volunteers from the Deerstalkers Association shot the critically endangered takahe while carrying out a cull of 600 pukeko on the island in Auckland’s Hauraki Gulf.
DoC was in talks with the association, which was said to be “co-operating fully” with inquiries.
Andrew Baucke says DOC has engaged local deerstalkers on two previous successful pukeko culling operations on the island in 2012 and 2013.
Pukeko are as common as ducks and geese and because they are a highly aggressive species they are considered a threat to rare native bird species.
“The hunters had been carefully briefed on how to differentiate between the flightless takahe and pukeko, including instructions to only shoot birds on the wing”, Baucke explained, according to ABC.
Takahe is an endangered, indigenous bird of New Zealand.
The cull of pukeko – a native swamphen that is found in vast numbers across the country – was organised because of the damage they cause to the nests and eggs of threatened species.
Takahe were presumed extinct in the early 20th century but were rediscovered in the South Island in 1948.
O’Leary said the Deerstalkers Association is committed to working with DOC to protect endangered species and back country assets.
There are now about 300 birds alive in New Zealand, only between 70 and 80 of which are in the wild.
“We see these deaths as a setback”.
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Deerstalkers Affiliation president Invoice O’Leary informed Radio New Zealand he was “appalled” by the unintentional deaths. Since then, the government’s conservation department has invested heavily in rebuilding the population, with a public-private sector partnership program that aimed to establish 125 breeding pairs by 2002, the Guardian reports. “I apologize to the department and to the country at large”.
