HAUNTS OF NATIVE BIRDS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20962, 27 August 1931, Page 8

HAUNTS OF NATIVE BIRDS

DESERTER LOCALITIES. INTRODUCTION PROBLEM. FOOD SUPPLY QUESTION. / • // KORIMAKO AND WAITAKERES/ The question whether ifc is wise to reintroduce a species of native bird to a locality where it has once flourished, and has since died out, was discussed at the last meeting of the executive of the Now Zealand Native Bird Protection held in Wellington. Birds are distributed according to coun- / trie 3, according to districts, and according to local territories. Unless they be migratory birds with powers of long flight, land birds cannot pass from country to country over long distances of ocean; but birds that cannot themselves go to a distant place are sometimes transferred and acclimatised there by man. Hence the acclimatisation controversies. This branch (inter-country) of the redistribution (man-contrived) of birds is nowadays jealously watched. / The Need for Research. Human interference with the distribution of native birds within their own f country has not hitherto been regarded with the same suspicion as attaches nowadays to the introduction of exotic species from outside. All the same, iiuman interference with the distribution of native birds is not to be lightly undertaken. That is the impression created by the discussion of the New Zealand Native Bird Protection Society's executive, some of whose members are experts. There is much still to bo learned, hence the society's quest for funds for research. Possible objections to redistribution of / native birds are (1) the overstocking of a district, endangering the territorial system in the case of such species as may practise it wholly or partly, and promoting famine and struggle; (2) the bringing together, from different parts of a sea-divided country, of distinct local varieties of the same species of bird, causing undesirable inter-breeding. It was pointed out by one member of the society's executive that Dr. J. G. Myers, New Zealand entomologist and ornithologist, had published a warning against mixing of varieties. It was further stated that different varieties of wekas (woodhens) have inter-bred in island sanctuaries. Also, imported ducks and native ducks have produced crosses condemned as undesirable even by acclimatisation societies. Unlooked-for Results. The inter-breeding of North Island and South Island/varieties of bird that have been brought together, for the first known time, in an island bird sanctuary, illustrates that unlooked-for results may attend the redistribution of birds even within their own country. To what extent is it to-day within the power of the native birds themselves to redistribute themselves ? The travel-range of the bird, in virgin New Zealand, was much the same as it is to-day, so far as concerns flight. The , mobility of migrating birds, particularly ' of flightless birds, was probably greater in the days of the great forest, when the native birds, knowing that forest for centuries, knew exactly what food and accommodation to expect along the line of a long migration. How the native migrants fare now, when hundreds of miles of country between point and point is entirely divested of its former plantcovering, is something of a mystery, on which Mr. Guthrie-Smith has "touched in , one of his publications. Repatriation ol Bellbirds. The question then arises whether the . native bird, notwithstanding his mobility as a bird, is specially handicapped in any effort to reoccupy localities previously occupied but for some reason lost. Reconquest of lost ground by native vegetation is rapid, sometimes too rapid. The fixed plant has mobile seeds (thanks partly to the bird), and man-made gardens and parks of indigenous plants are increasingly the vogue. Seizing on tliis remedy, one member of the society's executive remarked that if the people of Auckland wished to reestablish the korimako (bellbird) on Waitakere reserve, the key to the matter was food supply—the existence of a sufficiency of native korimako-feeding trees and plants, and the planting of such if they do not exist. As a step to restoring the continuity of bird-feeding trees that existed in the former virgin forest, he would like to see suitable trees planted in gardens and reserves at various points here and there all over the country, forming chains of communication over the hundreds of miles separating the surviving virgin forest blocks. With such plant oases established in the bird-desert created by the white man, the native birds could voluntarily move from one part of New Zealand to another. He thought it would be better for Auckland to lure the bellbird back to Waitakere by establishing food supply and food lines, connecting Waitakere with bellbird forests, and permitting two-way migration, than to cap- ' ture a-few pair of bellbirds on Little Barrier Island and liberate them_ in wellpoarhed Waitakere to take their chance. Most members of the executive, while believing that the planting of bird-feeding trees is of primary importance, saw no harm in the Auckldnd proposal to try to reintroduce a limited number of bellbirds into a forest in which they formerly existed. A resolution was passed to the effect that the society is not opposed to the reintroduction of native birds to localities known to have been their natural home, providing local conditions are still favourable; that is, that there are food and cover for them.