Takahē

Takahē eat grass.

They bite off the soft bottoms of tussock grass leaves.

Takahē are plant eaters. In the mountains they mostly eat the soft, starchy bottoms of tussock grass leaves, plus sedges and grass seeds when they can find them.

In winter, when deep snow covers the grass, they go into the forest and dig up the underground stems of a fern. On the islands, where there is plenty of grass all year, they nibble shorter grasses from the tips down. Sometimes they also catch a big insect, such as a moth, beetle or wētā.

Fiordland takahē feed mainly on the leaf bases of tussock grasses (Chionochloa), sometimes taking sedges, rushes and Aciphylla; grass seeds are stripped from the stem while still attached (New Zealand Birds Online). IUCN describes them as feeding primarily on juices from the bases of snow tussock. In winter forest they grub the starchy rhizomes of the fern Hypolepis millefolium and of the sedge Carex coriacea.

On islands and lowland reserves, smaller pasture grasses grazed from the tips down are the staple, so the diet varies less with the seasons. Large insects (moths, beetles, wētā) are taken opportunistically, and ducklings or lizards very rarely (New Zealand Birds Online). The Department of Conservation notes that the fibrous diet means a takahē can produce up to 9 meters of droppings a day.

Takahē live in pairs or small families.

Each family has its own patch of grass.

Takahē live in pairs or small family groups. A pair defends its own territory by calling, or by fighting if it has to, and comes back to the same place each year.

A family needs a lot of space to find enough food: the Department of Conservation says territories can be anywhere from 4 to 100 hectares, depending on how much good food grows there.

Takahē live in pairs or small family groups; pairs defend breeding territories by calling or, if necessary, fighting, and return to the same areas each year. Unusual breeding trios or larger groups, with two females laying, have been seen (New Zealand Birds Online). Territories range from 4 to 100 hectares depending on the availability and quality of food (Department of Conservation).

In Fiordland, natural hazards include avalanches and cold weather. Introduced stoats prey on takahē; their impact is low in most years, but when conditions let stoat numbers rise sharply they have a greater impact on takahē survival (New Zealand Birds Online).

Takahē almost disappeared.

People trap stoats, care for eggs and chicks, and move takahē to safe islands. Now the number of takahē is growing.

The takahē is endangered. It once lived across the South Island, but hunting, the loss of its habitat, predators brought by people, such as stoats, and competition for food (red deer eat the same tussock grass) led to its decline. In 2007 a stoat plague, a sudden rise in stoat numbers, halved the Murchison Mountains population.

The Department of Conservation runs a takahē recovery program: trapping stoats, controlling deer, breeding takahē at the Burwood Takahē Centre near Te Anau and moving birds to safe islands and new wild places. The total population reached 300 in 2016 and about 500 in 2023.

BirdLife International and Handbook of the Birds of the World assessed Porphyrio hochstetteri as Endangered (criterion D) for the IUCN Red List (assessed 19 March 2020, published 2020): only 50 to 249 mature individuals are counted as wild, because birds in intensively managed sites, small islands and the then-new Kahurangi population are excluded, and the trend is increasing. The total was 418 birds with about 130 breeding pairs in 2019 (Department of Conservation, cited by IUCN), and around 500 in 2023 (Department of Conservation); New Zealand classifies it as Nationally Vulnerable.

IUCN names stoat predation as a key threat: a stoat 'plague' in 2007-2008 cut the Fiordland population by over 40% (the Department of Conservation says it halved). Red deer competing for tussock drove the post-1940s decline. Responses include the 500-square-kilometer Murchison Mountains Special (Takahē) Area, deer control since the 1960s, stoat trapping since 2002, the Burwood Takahē Centre (from 1985), island transfers to limit inbreeding, and new wild populations at Gouland Downs (2018) and Greenstone Station (2023).

For a long time, people thought takahē were all gone.

Then, in 1948, a team found takahē living high in the mountains.

Only four takahē were collected in Fiordland between 1849 and 1898. After that, people thought the bird was extinct for nearly 50 years.

In 1948, Geoffrey Orbell, a doctor from Invercargill, and his team found the last wild takahē in the tussock grasslands of the Murchison Mountains, above Lake Te Anau. This rediscovery started New Zealand's longest-running program to save an endangered species. Ngāi Tahu, the iwi (Māori tribe) of most of the South Island, value takahē as a taonga, a treasure, and work with the Department of Conservation to protect them.

Four specimens were collected in Fiordland between 1849 and 1898, after which the takahē was considered extinct until its rediscovery in the Murchison Mountains, west of Lake Te Anau, in 1948 (New Zealand Birds Online). The Department of Conservation credits Geoffrey Orbell, a physician from Invercargill, and his party, and calls the recovery effort New Zealand's longest-running endangered species program.

Methods changed over time: from 1985 wild eggs were incubated and chicks puppet-reared at Burwood, and yearlings released; in 2010 puppet rearing stopped in favor of chicks raised by captive parents. Ngāi Tahu, the iwi of most of the South Island, regard takahē as a taonga and act as kaitiaki (guardians) alongside the Department of Conservation.