Saving the magpie robin
IN 1981 staff from the New Zealand Wildlife Service went to the Seychelles to eradicate
cats and give the rare magpie robin a chance of survival. At that point the robin’s population was just 20. Despite the successful battle against predators, however, in the decade since the bird’s numbers have risen to only 22. The magpie robin’s problems bear echoes of those experienced by New Zealand birds. Over thousands of years the species became a confiding ground feeder in a land with no rats and no cats. It lays just one egg, like many New Zealand birds.
Today the magpie robin is restricted to just one island in the Seychelles group, Fregate. ICBP have prepared a report showing why the magpie robin is not succeeding, and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is funding the rescue programme. This will involve increasing territory quality, providing additional nesting sites and establishing a second population on another island.
Permanent link to this item
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/FORBI19910801.2.14.4
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Forest and Bird, Volume 22, Issue 3, 1 August 1991, Page 8
Word count
Tapeke kupu
161Saving the magpie robin Forest and Bird, Volume 22, Issue 3, 1 August 1991, Page 8
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