Wild South: saving New Zealand's endangered birds

Forest and Bird, Issue 282, 1 November 1996, Page 53

Wild South: saving New Zealand's endangered birds

Gerard Hutching

by Rod Morris and Hal Smith (Random House) 1996, 248pp, $39.95 It is a brave soul who ignores the advice of producers from the BBC Natural History Unit — acknowledged masters of the art of natural history film making. Nevertheless, to their eternal credit, their TVNZ counterparts in 1975 did ignore the Beeb’s suggestion that it would be "simplest to begin with common animals such as rabbits and deer, to try to give audiences an intimate view of their private lives". Instead the New Zealanders chose to focus on the endemic species — mostly birds, and mostly rare and endangered — that make this country unique. The gamble paid off as audiences avidly watched the Wild South series of programmes open the window on a world that many did not know existed.

Saving New Zealand’s endangered birds, a new edition of a work first

published in 1988, is all the book’s title suggests — and more. Besides _ being a riveting narrative of the bird rescue work carried out by the Wildlife Service and the Department of Conservation, also describes the making of a number of the Wild South programmes. Rather than merely reading a scientist’s account, we are there with the camera crew as thev attempt to

film the sometimes elusive birds that are to be the subject of a programme, thereby offering us insights into animal behaviour we might never receive. And they are a star cast: the kiwi, black robin, takahe, kakapo, black stilt, saddleback, kea, yellow-eyed penguin and kokako. In a sense the evolution of the Dunedinbased Natural History Unit of TVNZ over the last two decades has paralleled that of bird conservation efforts. This revised edition shows us that, given the resources and the will, New Zealanders can reverse the slide to extinction that face so many of

native species: in 1996 the future of the kokako, yellow-eyed penguin, black robin and saddleback looks more rosy than in the late- 1980s. The strength of the book lies in the authors’ abilities to interweave a number of different elements: the history of the birds, wildlife rescue work and the creation of the documentaries. The lively and informative text is complemented by wonderful photography, mostly by unit producer Rod Morris.