Story: Natural environment

Page 5. Fauna

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Dominating the recent history of New Zealand’s fauna – birds, reptiles and insects – is the damage caused by humans and the predators they brought with them.

Native birds

Before people arrived, New Zealand was a land of birds. Night and day the forests were alive with rustlings, calls, booms, whistles and hoots. There were over 120 species of geese, ducks, rails, moa, parrots, owls, wrens and other perching birds. Around 70 of these were found only in New Zealand. Almost a quarter were nocturnal, and many were giants. The huge, flightless, foliage-browsing moa occupied niches usually the reserve of mammals, while the tiny wren scampered about on the ground like a mouse.

Gone for good

The moa, a huge bird that was once common in New Zealand, has become a national symbol of extinction, much like the dodo. This folk song explains how it died out:

‘No moa, no moa
In old Ao-tea-roa
Can’t get ’em
They’ve et ’em
They’re gone and there ain’t no moa’. 1

Birds such as the weka, kea and kākāpō evolved in splendid isolation. They had few natural predators apart from the giant Haast's eagle, which was still swooping down on even the very largest moa about 1,000 years ago. It is likely that it was not yet extinct when the first Polynesians arrived. In Māori oral lore this gigantic raptor was known as the hokioi – reputedly after the sound of its call.

Introduced predators

Many bird species became extinct after the arrival of Polynesians, who brought the kiore (Pacific rat) and the kurī (dog) with them. Flightless and ground-nesting birds proved easy pickings for Polynesians, who simply walked up to moa and clubbed them. While humans are the most likely cause of the larger birds’ extinction, the kiore is the prime suspect in the disappearance of smaller birds and invertebrates.

By the 19th century Europeans had introduced other rat species, ferrets, weasels, stoats, cats, pigs and dogs, which further extinguished New Zealand’s birds and other animals.

A remarkable coincidence

Scientists Trevor Worthy and Richard Holdaway have clarified why so many of New Zealand’s bird species have disappeared over the past 700 years. Theories about climate or habitat variations, disease, and even the belief that some species were somehow genetically inferior don’t explain a remarkable coincidence. When humans arrived, extinctions occurred: ‘the simple, inescapable fact is that the New Zealand avifauna [birdlife] has been decimated by introduced mammalian predators, including people.’ 2

Birds under threat

Some species managed to survive on offshore islands. Visionary conservationists recognised this and relocated threatened bird populations to these ‘arks’. In the 21st century offshore islands are a major focus of conservation – introduced predators have been exterminated and birdlife has flourished again.

However, around 30 bird species are listed as endangered. The kiwi is also under threat. This curious bird cannot fly, has loose, hair-like feathers and long whiskers, and is largely nocturnal. Most New Zealanders have never seen one. Māori refer to it as ‘te manuhuna a Tānemahuta’ – the hidden bird of Tāne, god of the forest. In some areas kiwi still whistle their high-pitched calls after dark.

Wētā, peripatus and other creatures

There were also other native species, many of which survive today. When humans arrived there were only three terrestrial mammal species – all were bats, and one is now extinct.

Other unique fauna include the wētā. These resemble rather terrifying large grasshoppers, but are harmless. New Zealand’s most famous reptile, the tuatara, grows to about 24 cm long, is rather slow-moving, and lives for up to 60 years.

Only birds and dogs

In his account of New Zealand in 1770, Joseph Banks noted (using his own spelling) the scarcity of four-legged creatures:

‘It appears not improbable that there realy are no other species of Quadrupeds in the countrey; for the natives, whose cheif luxury of Dress consists in the skins and hair of Dogs and the skins of divers birds, and who wear for ornaments the bones and beaks of birds and teeth of Dogs, would probably have made use of some part of any other animal they were acquainted with: a circumstance which tho we carefully sought after, we never saw the least signs of.’ 3

Splendidly marked, New Zealand's geckos are unusual in that they bear live young, rather than laying eggs. These reptiles are diverse in both habitat and lifestyle – some live in trees, while others prefer rocky mountain ranges.

The ngākeoke or peripatus is another living fossil – its relatives have been around for hundreds of millions of years. An odd creature, it resembles a worm with legs, and traps its prey in leaf litter by spitting on them. Also on the bush floor are the giant carnivorous land snails, Powelliphanta and Paryphanta.

Freshwater fish

Freshwater fish have fared better than birds. Although many populations are much reduced, only one species, the upokororo or New Zealand grayling, has disappeared. Many species belong to a family known as galaxiids, and some of their juvenile stages are a prized delicacy, whitebait. Introduced trout have flourished. Because they prey on native fish species, trout were implicated in the demise of the upokororo and the reduced range of many other freshwater species.

Footnotes:
  1. Quoted in Janet Hunt, A bird in the hand: keeping New Zealand wildlife safe. Auckland: Random House, 2003, p. 9. › Back
  2. Trevor H. Worthy and Richard N. Holdaway, The lost world of the moa: prehistoric life of New Zealand. Christchurch: Canterbury University Press, 2002, p. 565. › Back
  3. Quoted in Philip Temple, ed., Lake, mountain tree: an anthology of writing on New Zealand nature & landscape. Auckland: Godwit, 1998, p.17. › Back
How to cite this page:

Carl Walrond, 'Natural environment - Fauna', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/natural-environment/page-5 (accessed 28 March 2024)

Story by Carl Walrond, published 8 Feb 2005