There are around 300 of the colorful, flightless takahe birds left in the world, but thanks to a hunting snafu in New Zealand, there are now four fewer of the critically endangered species.
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DOC’s Andrew Baucke said it’s not the first incident of its kind, and the department has launched two inquiries in response to the latest shooting.
“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, cull/6716330″>according to ABC.
They were mistakenly killed during Department of Conservation approved cull of puekoko; a common bird known for its aggressive behaviour.
“Guidelines introduced after an incident on Mana Island seven years ago when another takahe was mistakenly shot during a pukeko cull were also used during last week’s cull”.
Only around 80 of the birds now exist in the wild.
Takahe birds are often mistaken to be a fat pukeko because of the similarity in their appearance.
“There’s no way that they would send their treasured takahe to a sanctuary for it to be slaughtered”, Rino Tirikatene, a member of the New Zealand Parliament told the Herald. The department has put an official halt on the association’s cull, which it says is cooperating with investigations of the association’s programs.
“There are even calls for the return home of those birds”.
The takahe were thought to be extinct until their rediscovery in southwestern New Zealand in 1948.
“We see these deaths as a setback”. The birds were translocated from the Fiordland National Park to Motutapu Island.
Deerstalkers Association president Bill O’Leary told Radio New Zealand he was “appalled” by the accidental 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.
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The Deerstalkers Association is committed to working with the department to protect endangered species and back country assets, he says. “I trust that this tragic incident will not harm the generally positive relationship we have with the Department of Conservation”.
