Albatrossity
The next set in this series is non-native animals in New Zealand. And there are a lot of those, from insects to fish to birds to large mammals, thanks to the intervention of the so-called Acclimitisation Societies in the 19th Century. It is almost directly across the globe from England, and the early European settlers missed their native land, so they set about to make it as much like England as possible. Besides clearing forests and planting crops and fighting with the Maori, they imported English and North American creatures. Some were to be hunted (moose, deer, quail, turkeys), some were to provide native birdsong (thrushes), some were to provide good fishing (salmon and trout), and some merely escaped or went feral (rats, cats, stoats, etc.).
All of these animals, if they persisted in this strange part of the world, had a deleterious effect on the native birds. In fact, the only known specimens of an endemic (and now extinct) NZ bird, the Stephens Island Wren, were collected by a single cat that belonged to the lighthouse keeper. Stoats and rats were the primary predators that nearly exterminated the Takahe. And the non-native birds and insects compete for nesting habitat, insect food, nectar, and other items that are important to the survival of the native birds. This scenario has been repeated on islands around the world, but nowhere was it as purposeful and widespread as it was in New Zealand.
Map of places mentioned in this post.
European birds were imported many times, and although not all of them became established, enough did so that the English settlers could hear birdsong reminiscent of their native England in woods and gardens throughout New Zealand. This European Blackbird (Turdus merula), photographed in Auckland, was introduced multiple times in multiple locations starting in 1862, and is now probably the most widespread bird in the country. Four-and-twenty of them are needed to make a pie, I recall.
On The Road – Albatrossity – New Zealand #2Post + Comments (10)