‘Worst Nature record’
PA Wellington New Zealand and Hawaii had the worst conservation records in the world, said the Government member for Hamilton East, Dr I. J. Shearer, in Parliament yesterday. ’ Since New Zealand was settled 61 species of birdlife had become extinct: 45 species before European settlement and 16 since.
Before Europeans arrived, 24 moa species alone were extinct; and as late as 1964 the last recorded specimen of the Stewart Island snipe disappeared. On a world-wide basis, one in every 11 endangered species was a New Zealand bird. This was attributable to “people not caring enough to do anything about it.” “The environment is taking a battering from man,” Dr Shearer said. Man was the most destructive species in the world, and the most adaptable. “When all others are gone the only remaining one may be man,” Dr Shearer said.
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Press, 20 July 1979, Page 4
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142‘Worst Nature record’ Press, 20 July 1979, Page 4
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