[ad_1]
STUFF
Conservative Te Papa and bird expert Colin Miskelly unveils some of the museum's hidden treasures.
As a school kid, Colin Miskelly saw a poster featuring takahē, black robin and kākāpō as well as the title Wanted: Alive . He wondered if he would ever see the critically endangered species in his lifetime, or if they had disappeared.
A few years later, he took a bottle of port at the top of Rangatira Island on the Chathams to celebrate his 21st birthday. birthday, watch the sunset, alone. The rest of Don Merton's pioneering black taps conservation team had left the island that morning for Christmas. While the blackbird chicks they had pushed to find their wings, he gave them names. There was Bonus – the extra chick that appeared out of nowhere; Phoenix – who survived despite a cracked egg and Rosie – after his girlfriend then – who turned out to be a super breeder.
During this unique breeding season, 1983/1984, the red-throated population doubled from nine to 18 years, ushering in an era of New Zealand's advanced bird recovery programs and a lifetime of research and bird conservation.
Miskelly volunteered with the robin conservation program and named several birds. 19659010] For the other birds, it was already too late. Miskelly unlocks a wooden cabinet in the basement of Te Papa's warehouse in Wellington, where he works as a curator.
The glassy eyes look above the unmistakable curve of a huia beak. Miskelly does not think we will be able to bring back extinct birds anytime soon, given the added complication of trying to implant an egg rather than an embryo. But he saw the charismatic personality of their closest relatives, kōkako and saddleback. Add that to the elegant black plumage and bright orange vermilion – it would be difficult to find a better candidate for de-extinction.
"I do not think that will happen in our lifetime, but if you could create a huia, would not that be wonderful?"
In the same office, there is a funny owl – like a huge owl – which died out in 1914. Miskelly is realistic and does not believe in the great stories that still exist.And when five birdwatchers had to decide whether an orange wattled bird near Reefton in 2007 was really a kōkako of the South Island, he voted against.
Ross Giblin
Miskelly joins the Ornithological Society at the age of 13 and has never lost the passion for locating and searching for rare birds
In cabinets, skins are stretched on shapes sculpted cigars, brilliant, velvety and smelling of camphor, it is difficult not to dye and caress them. But they also have sad stories. The two snipes rescued by the Wildlife Service before a rat invasion in 1963 erased the population of the Taukihepa Island / Big South Cape. They died in the aviary, but later they were discovered to be a man at the same time.
The next is one from Miskelly – a Campbell Island woodcock from his trip in 2006. He injured his wing in his research network. It was traumatic his first injury in thousands of snipe-handlings. Until we came to the time of a rifle of curatorial assigned to the collection of specimens.
As a curator, he says, you have to learn all the scientific names. "I was pretty nerd of bird before I started here that did not take much," he laughs.
Meet Colin Miskelly, 55 – sniper-ologist, former Conservation Department (DOC) conservation advisor, Te Papa curator, founder of the bird identification site nzbirdsonline, Happy Feet ID.
Provided
Miskelly still has Gregg's jelly cards that he attributes to arouse his interest for the birds. Miskelly was 13 when he joined the Ornithological Society. His father was a mechanical engineer and his mother a nurse, but his grandfather had been passionate about natural history. Colin has always been fascinated by wildlife and Gregg's gelatin exchange cards have helped divert the attention of big African game birds to New Zealand birds.
A family friend took him on a trip to Auckland harbor. "It's so boring," he laments. "The most exciting bird was a white-faced heron". Then, instead, he scoured Muriwai Beach, West Auckland, to find dead seabirds, hoping to find out more about them. At age 15, he spent six weeks at the Chathams, celebrating his 16th birthday volunteering with a taiko petrel expedition – a ghost bird that had just been rediscovered after 120 years.
Even now, he spends his weekends on research trips and earlier He took a month off to volunteer on the Chatham Islands
It's partly because of the pleasure of seeing a rare bird – it adapts holiday itineraries around opportunities to see – but also learn how they behave, their history and the history of humans. interactions with them.
It is easy to forget that the concept of species protection is relatively modern.
"It was a completely new concept to protect wildlife, rather than consider it as a resource that God made available to humans. "title =" "src =" https://resources.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/1/q/p/v/q/6/image.related.StuffLandscapeSixteenByNine.620×349.1qnb2x.png/ 1531502873681.jpg "class =" photoborder "/>
The Miskelly Orchestra has small scale prints of snipes "title =" "src =" https://resources.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/1 /q/p/v/q/6/image.related.StuffLandscapeSixteenByNine.620×349.1qnb2x.png/1531502873681.jpg "class =" photoborder "/>
Ross Giblin
Miskelly's group has small scale prints of snipe prints
The Miskelly wedding group expresses the extent of his passion / obsession. It is inlaid with the footprints of the secret snipe that have occupied much of his research time. They are an exact replica of the muddy feet that followed through his notebook in 1986.
Just like anything else, it was the attraction of distant places and fascinating which led him to study the snipe. He spent six summers on the Snares Islands, watching, recording their calls, carefully keeping them in his nets. Four people on an island located 100 km southwest of Stewart Island for three months. They baked bread on the old capricious fork, peeled crayfish and fresh vegetables from the trawlers, and – remarkably – managed to stay healthy.
Despite being realistic, Miskelly somewhat regrets destroying an old seductive myth by her research. The Moutonneurs used to tell the story of the mysterious hakawai – a bird whose call on clear moonlit nights was followed by a roar like an anchor chain falling in a boat. Miskelly showed that the haunting sound was actually an aerial snipe display – the roar is made with the tail feathers. He paired the calls with sonograms and found that the tail feathers of Snipe bore revealing damage to their tips.
Delivered
Miskelly is best known for his research on snipes, such as this bird on the Chatham Islands.
From there, he obtained a position as scientific advisor to DOC on the west coast and later in Wellington where he remained 18 years. . It was the first days of pest eradication and DOC was looking to clear the island of Kapiti from rats. Miskelly helped design the drop of poison brodifacoum, which had not yet been tested on species such as kiwi, kaka and robin. They knew that all eyes would be on them, and they could not afford to be wrong.
Since then, New Zealand has become a world leader in pest eradication. Miskelly is cautious, however, about the Predator Free 2050 campaign.
"I do not know if the date is achievable, but when you think about what has been accomplished in my life, I've visited Little Barrier Island at the age of 14 on a five day trip We wanted to eradicate cats At the time, it was an absolute dream that to have rats there, we just thought you could never do it, but in 20 years it had been done. "
The biggest barriers will be people, because eradication will likely require publicly bland tools like that genetic modification.There is also a risk of mouse population explosions because their competitors and their predators are removed.
Miskelly is involved in one of the major milestones of the campaign – removing pigs, cats and mice from Auckland Islands' "hunk of land." He publishes a book about birds in the area so that future ecologists can follow their recovery.
Delivered
Miskelly's research has led to some of the most spectacular and remote places in the world. Basement, Miskelly comes out of the albatross trays – sad specimens with closed wings that give no idea of their gigantic wingspan. They once served as beach wrecks and fishing bycatch, but the efforts of the 1990s have reduced the impact of kiwi fleets. Now, they face a different threat.
"The crews of the Asian fishing fleet are so hungry that they think they're deliberately taking albatrosses to eat, just to survive, which is probably the biggest threat to them." New Zealand albatross. the fleets on the high seas. "
Miskelly is generally optimistic about New Zealand birds – they are loved – they are on our banknotes and postage stamps and part of the way we see ourselves [19659047] Miskelly with a floating puffinch chick on the Isle of Mana, where he continues to research ” title=”” src=”https://resources.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/1/q/p/w/g/h/image.related.StuffLandscapeSixteenByNine.620×349.1qnb2x.png/1531502873681.jpg” class=”photoborder”/>
Delivered
Miskelly with a throbbing chick on the Isle of Mana, where he continues to research.
But not all species respond to conservation techniques. Efforts to move dockside plovers and orange-fronted parrots to pest free islands did not work. "When it comes to conservation, you learn a lot more things that do not work, yet ministers and senior executives go to great lengths to hide this information. "
But new threats are emerging: climate change could threaten troglodytes, as ermines may venture higher into their alpine territory, while for other birds, coastal and riverine developments destroy their habitat. 19659006] The mouth of the rivers and erosion cause erosion of bird habitats .Tempts to tame braided rivers and shape the coast permanently are therefore bad news for the birds. birds
Delivered
Miskelly was working with an Antarctic tourism company, which involved camping with emperor penguins.
In 40 years of birding, Miskelly has seen all of New Zealand's endemic birds and made it to islands so far apart that it took them weeks to reach. He named a species (the Snipe Perseverance) and was the first human to see a snipe nest from Campbell Island. But a bird that he identified sent his face around the world – Happy Feet. When someone reported an emperor penguin sighting on the coast of Kapiti, DOC called Miskelly. He had spent a season as a guide in a Antarctic tourism company, camping with emperors.
"There was no one else on the beach and we could just see that piece of wood or something. I realized that, yes, it was a penguin, about 100 meters from my binoculars, I knew that it was an emperor, it was amazing, even a penguin king, who is the other option, would have been quite remarkable in the North Island. But the beginning of what it meant was progressive. "
Miskelly's face has went around the world in 2011, after being called to identify the emperor penguin that appeared on Peka Peka beach
Miskelly was opposed to his return to Antarctica Stray birds regularly visit New Zealand – please send back the duck in Alaska?
"It's ridiculous that you bring a bird back to where it was coming from."
But he's a diplomat on what he thinks happened when Happy Feet was released, never to be heard again.
The emitter fell. "
– Stuff
Source link
Tags bird Colin curator expert Miskelly national Papa Portrait Te
