Auckland Zoo 2007 » Auckland Zoo

15-12-2007

"How do they compare in size to swamp hens, which to my European eyes are like huge aggressive moorhens?"

sorry about the quality of the photo (flash not allowed), but here's a comparison of the skeletons of takahe on left and pukeko (purple gallinule or swamphen to non-NZers) on right, taken at the Otago Museum. The takahe as you can see is massive compared to the pukeko although the height difference isn't much so. The stuffed bird in front is a pukeko.

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15-12-2007

Would you know the current numbers of Kakapo on Codfish Island?

15-12-2007

The total population is 86 birds; 64 of them are on Codfish. Here's a recent link

The Otago Daily Times, Online Edition

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15-12-2007

Thanks for the link Chlidonias, they are really Interesting birds

24-12-2007

Maybe the next time you lose to us in cricket..!

24-12-2007

One of the flamingo's has been nesting within the last few weeks, when I first noticed one of the keepers did too, stopped and was very excited..!

25-12-2007

When you say its been nesting do you mean just trying to build a nest? Flamingoes often do this in the years before actually breeding. Its sort of like practice runs I guess. Good news though, and it may even result in an egg. (Let's hope!)

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25-12-2007

Yes nestbuilding, just on the edge where the water meets the mud (additionally the nests have been in two different places both times I have been there, which I'm guessing isn't a good sign for this batch)...

25-12-2007

Chlidonias,

How many takahe are there left in the wild? Are they just in Fiordland or some more spaces too? Do wild birds suffer from egg predation by introduced non natives? Are there any predator eradication programmes going in NZ for takahe?

Is Mount Bruce the only captive facility to try to breed them and augment the wild population?

26-12-2007

there are about 240 takahe today. The main population is in Fiordland at the original (re-)discovery site. There was an attempt at establishing a second population in a nearby mountain range but it was largely unsuccessful. Several island populations have been established, particularly on Kapiti (near Wellington) and Tiritiri Matangi (near Auckland). All takahe -- captive, island and Fiordland -- are treated as one population for management purposes (this is often the case with NZ's endangered species, so individuals are moved here or there to spread genes around, etc).

Mt. Bruce (the National Wildlife Centre) is a facility north of Wellington that is operated by DoC (that's the Department of Conservation) as a breeding station for many NZ species. It is open to the public. I think there may only be one or a couple of pairs of takahe there, for advocacy purposes. However takahe are also being bred at another DoC facility at Burwood Bush near Te Anau in Fiordland. The birds bred here are the ones that are augmenting the wild birds. Some can be viewed at the Te Anau Wildlife Centre.

The area where the "true" wild population lives is off-limits to the general public, and is heavily trapped to keep down the numbers of predators and also the deer which eat the same food as the takahe.

They are slow breeders, maturing at three years and only laying two eggs. Chick mortality is high, even on the predator-free islands. The adults are so big and feisty they can take care of themselves (there is a record of one decapitating a stoat that was attacking its chick!).

When Europeans arrived the takahe was already in a relict distribution in severe decline due to overhunting by the Maori. There are accounts that even though there were pukeko (purple gallinules) everywhere in abundance, Maori parties made special arduous trips into the Fiordland mountains specifically to hunt takahe. Their rarity gave them a special significance as prey. I guess it was of a similar vein to museum collectors deliberately hunting down the last great auks.

And finally, there were once two species of takahe. The South Island one and a North Island one which was even bigger (taller but slimmer). Originally they were described as the same species. The North Island species is known only from subfossil bones but there is a tantalising account of what could have been their survival until as late as 1894 (the article is in Notornis 8).

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31-12-2007

Chlidonias,

Is the takahe population now growing thanks to captive-rearing at Mt. Bruce and/or Te Anau? What about the mammal predation and eradication: what is the status here?

01-01-2008

in 1948 when the breeding population in Fiordland was originally discovered there were between 250 and 300 birds (probably at the lower end of that figure). There was a major decline in the 60s and 70s due to deer destroying the habitat and stoats etc killing chicks. In 1982 there were around 150 birds (with fluctuations either side). In 1995 total population was about 200 birds (about 130 in the wild at the original site, and the rest on islands and a few in captivity). Today there are about 240.

In other words, the population goes up and down all the time but is now only about the same as what it was back in 1948 (but higher than just ten years ago). It could be thought of as a SAFER population though in that there are quite a lot on offshore islands (I don't know exact numbers).

As for introduced mammals, the islands they are on are all entirely free of them. In Fiordland trapping and poisoning is constant to keep mammal numbers to a bare minimum as much as possible.

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01-01-2008

i remember reading somewhere that an auckland zoo female orangutan died from cancer? any details on this?

03-01-2008

I've just added a lot of photo's from Auckland Zoo... Taken in Oct 2007, if anyone is interested...

07-01-2008

i was wacthing the zoo and noticed the amount of lions cubs born : how many were there in total and where are they now