New Zealand birds evolved in isolation from natural predators for around 65 million years. When human settlers arrived, changes came rapidly and birds were poorly adapted to withstand threats to their survival. Hunting, loss of habitat and the introduction of predators all had disastrous effects on the state of our native birds, whose numbers declined rapidly.
The Department of Conservation has led many initiatives to reverse this decline. Regardless of the natural population numbers before human arrival, it is clear that we’ve created a number of threats to the takahē’s continued existence.
Related Hub resources:
- Threats to takahē – article
- Takahē conservation efforts – article
- Protecting native birds – article
- Threats to biodiversity – activity
- Population biology – article
Related ZEALANDIA resource:
- Interrelationships in the Murchison Mountains community – worksheet exploring concepts of population modelling by supporting students to interpret trends in predator/prey and population graphs
Image: Red deer by Malgorzata Litkowska, 123RF Ltd
