A bird cull on a New Zealand island has been abruptly halted after marksmen killed four rare takahe, an endangered species with only 300 known to exist, officials said Friday.
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It was meant to be carrying out a cull of around 600 of the highly-aggressive pukeko birds.
“It beggars belief that four endangered takahe were killed by incompetent cullers contracted to the department”.
The takahe is distantly related to pukeko, leading to its similar looks and characteristics.
Authorities said in a statement they had “carefully briefed” hunters how to differentiate between the two birds. “But we’re angry these birds have been shot after the shooters were instructed to shoot pukeko on the wing, having been told that takahe can’t fly”.
However, authorities revealed that it was also not the first time such an incident had happened.
The island’s cull was undertaken by “experienced members” of the local deerstalkers association, DOC’s northern conservation services director Andrew Baucke said.
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.
“There are even calls for the return home of those birds”.
“There’s no way that they would send their treasured takahe to a sanctuary for it to be slaughtered”, said New Zealand MP Rino Tirakatene.
The takahē were shot on Motutapu Island in the Hauraki Gulf yesterday.
O’Leary said the Deerstalkers Association is committed to working with DOC to protect endangered species and back country assets. “There is a lot of goodwill that goes with these gifts to improve the biodiversity, and to see that they’ve needlessly been bowled over by some deer hunters is just really disappointing”.
Deerstalkers Association president Bill O’Leary has publicly apologized, saying he was appalled by the incident and apologized to the conservation department and the nation at large, the Guardian reports.
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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”.
