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Takahe
Back from the dead

Until the 1940’s, the takahe was thought to be extinct: none had been seen for 50 years. A survey of the Murchison Mountains shortly after the rediscovery in 1948 revealed about two hundred breeding pairs of birds. By 1981 only 120 birds remained.

“we returned to where we had found the tracks on our last trip. Suddenly, quite near this spot, a large blue-green bird stepped out from among the snow tussock. And there, no more than twenty metres away from us stood a living Notornis, the bird that was supposed to be extinct.”
Dr Geoffry Orbell,
20 November 1948.

 

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