|
|
Takahe - Oh Deer! |
|
Questions At the beginning of the 1970s the Wildlife Service (now the Department of Conservation) noticed there had been a rapid decline in takahe living in the Murchison Mountains – what was the problem? Why weren’t the takahe chicks surviving?
|
|
| Answers The Wildlife Service staff, lead by Jim Mills, spent a lot of time in the Murchison Mountains with the takahe. They were trying to learn the answers to these questions... Tussock grass... Jim Mills discovered that some of the
tussock grass had a depleted amount of nutrients. This meant that the mother and chicks
may not have been getting enough goodness from the plants. This problem lead to another
question - why was some tussock grass not nutritious? |
| Red deer became
established in the Murchison Mountain area during the 1940s and 50s. They eat tussock
grass – so they were eating away the takahe’s food source and nesting sites.
Deer eat the top away from the tussock, leaving the plant unhealthy and damaged. If deer
eat too much of the plant, it will not be able to recover and the plant will die – so
as well as eating the takahe’s food and making it less nutritious, the deer were
killing the plants too. From 1948 deer were seen as a threat to the survival of takahe, so Dr Orbell and others hunted deer in the Murchison Mountains. The government employed some hunters to work in the area, but the deer moved in from the west in large numbers so the hunters had a very big job. The hunters worked hard but there were still too many deer. In 1976 hunting was increased with the use of helicopters, which was very successful and since then the deer numbers have been kept down. The Department of Conservation continues to control the number of deer in the Murchison Mountains, which is good for the takahe and the environment. |
 |
Why doesn’t the tussock grass die when takahe eats it? Takahe pull bits of the tussock grass out from the base of the plant. It does not leave the plant unhealthy; in fact the plant will grow a new shoot where the old one was. |
| What about the
stoats... The Department of Conservation is doing research on the effects of stoats, to
learn what impact they have on takahe chick survival. DOC already traps stoats in some
valleys during spring and summer to help the parent takahe while they are nesting and when
chicks are young. The
Department of Conservation staff are still very busy learning about the takahe and helping
them to breed. |
DOC’s takahe breeding programme Since 1983, the Department of Conservation has been involved in managing takahe nests to boost the birds' recovery. Artificial incubation of eggs and rearing of chicks is carried out at the Burwood Bush rearing unit, Te Anau, where five pairs are held to form a small breeding group. Chicks are reared with minimal human contact, being fed and brooded through the use of puppets and models. 'Excess' eggs from wild nests are also managed at the unit to produce birds suitable for freeing back into the wild population in the Murchison Mountains. Some of these captive-reared birds have been used as stock to establish the offshore island populations. The takahe breeding information is
from DOC’s website www.doc.govt.nz/templates/podcover.aspx?id=32932
|
|
|
WOW! It's wonderful New Zealand has so many people dedicated to helping takahe. It would be terrible if the takahe really did become extinct. |
