* THE BIRDS OF ENDANGERED SPECIES*

I would like to tell you about New Zealand’s birds of endangered species. There are a lot of animals in New Zealand; especially you can see various birds such as Kiwi, Takahe, and so on because New Zealand used to be paradise for birds. However, there were more rare birds like moa, huia, and piopio before human arrived. Then I introduce Moa which is the most famous extinct bird in New Zealand. Moa is known to the biggest bird all over the world. It is about 3 to 3.7 meters tall and similar to ostrich. Moa is flightless bird, so it had very thick leg. There are 10 types of Moa and they had live until 1760s. As well as Moa, many of birds in New Zealand can’t fly because there were no human so it’s safe for birds to live in the ground. But when Maori came to New Zealand they hunt moa a lot to eat or make feather and ornament. In addition, European started to live with pets like dog or cat, and their pets kill not-flying birds. Also nature where birds live decreased. So, one third of birds which live in the ground died and 73 types of birds peculiar to New Zealand are endangered species. So today DOC has taken various actions to save these birds.

Then, I would like to tell you what DOC does. DOC is the Department of Conservation. They are the central government organization to conserve New Zealand’s natural and historic heritage for all to enjoy now and in the future. They have protected, reproduced, and breed animals and natures. For example they offer many opportunities on conservation lands to explore enjoy and be inspired. There are hundreds of walking opportunities and they manage marine reserves, and thousands of hectares of conservation lands and scenic reserves you can visit. Also there are 14 New Zealand’s national parks. There are 5 key conservation activities; working with threatened species to save them from extinction, managing and controlling the wide range of threats to native species and their eco-systems, caring for their New Zealand‘s marine life by creating and managing marine reserves and coastal areas, restoring damaged eco-systems through restoration projects and ‘mainland is lands’, looking after New Zealand’s historic buildings and sites such as old government buildings, former mining settlements. Then I tell you DOC’s activities of birds.

One example of their action is kiwi. Kiwi is national bird of NZ and there are 5 types ‘North island brown kiwi, great spotted kiwi, okarito brown kiwi, haast tokoeka, and southern tokoeka. However, there were 10 types before Maori started to live. The death rate of grown-up kiwi is 5-16%, and the rate of child kiwi is 98%. Recently, the main reason of decreasing of kiwi is dog. There is the case that a dog killed 500 kiwis. So DOC set up some facilities. One of the facilities is Kiwi encounter in Rotorua. They try to incubate and breed artificially and take back nature. At present, there are 75,000 kiwis.

Robin has also been protected by DOC. Robin live forest lands of New Zealand. There are 3 types, ’North Island New Zealand Robin’ ‘South Island New Zealand Robin’ ‘Chatham Island New Zealand Robin’. Above all Chatham Island New Zealand Robin is one of the most few populations in the world. On 1979 there were only 5 birds, but today there are over 200 birds through conservative activities. The life span is 6 to 13 years old. But Robin is not good at parenting, so young bird doesn’t grow up and become endangered species.

Lastly, I introduce Kakapo that is the bird of success case of DOC’s activities. Kakapo is known to the heaviest parrot all over the world. The average of weight is 3.6 kg. In addition, it is only parrot which can’t fly and nocturnal bird. Kakapo is 64cm long and lives about 60 years. However, sad to say, you can’t meet wild Kakapo today because all of them are protected and breed by DOC. According to the report of DOC there were only about 60 birds formerly, but now there are about 80 birds. Today, DOC has established ‘Kakapo Recovery Program’ to save it. They get 5,000 dollars to 10,000 dollars every year and have spent this money to buy the machine of artificial incubation.

In New Zealand there are a lot of attractive things not only these birds but also other animals, beautiful beach and nature, traditional culture, exciting city, and so on. I think it is important to live together each other. Also there are some animals of endangered species in Japan, so we can learn various activities of DOC. I hope we can meet these birds in beautiful nature in the future.