KŌKAKO

IN SEARCH

O F T H E GREY GHOST

The South Island kōkako is widely believed to have died out a half century ago, but some committed bird experts are convinced there are signs a few remain: disturbed moss, glimpses of grey wings and orange wattles, an occasional haunting call. Yet despite decades scouring southern forests, the kōkako has remained elusive—a single feather is the closest the searchers may have come to proving the bird still exists.

WRITTEN BY KATE EVANS PHOTOGRAPHED BY TIM CUFF & PETR HLAVACEK TE PAPA

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HE SOUTHERN ALPS stand white the ancient wattlebird family that includes against a clear blue sky, the verges the extinct huia, the North Island kōkako and sparkle with frost. On a nonde- two kinds of saddleback. script bend in the highway Like so many others, the South Island between Lake Moeraki and Haast, kōkako was decimated by the arrival of intro- I follow Rhys Buckingham off the duced mammals, and was already rare by the road and into the forest. It’s an late 1800s. The last recognised 20th century auspicious day to look for a ghost. sighting was in 1967, and some critics don’t We are immediately enveloped even accept this report, suspecting the species in a chorus of , bellbirds and died out even earlier. There are no surviving chattering . Vibrating photographs of the bird, and in 2008, the wings whirr overhead, fluorescent green kidney Department of Conservation (DOC) pro- Tferns glow in the low winter sunlight, and nounced it officially extinct. carpets of filmy ferns blur the outlines of fallen But in three and half decades of search- trunks. As we climb through the damp under- ing—a total of years spent living in the bush— growth, tripping on supplejack vines, Buckingham has come across a host of and fantails flit into view to examine us. tantalising signs that there may still be a But there’s no sign, yet, of the bird handful of kōkako hiding out in forests across Buckingham has spent half his life looking the South Island. for—a bird so elusive it’s been christened ‘the He and a few other committed seekers are Grey Ghost’. convinced that New Zealanders have a respon- The orange-wattled South Island kōkako, sibility to find and protect them before it’s Callaeas cinerea, haunted southern forests for too late. up to 40 million years, one of five species of For Buckingham, it began in in

Rhys Buckingham (left) installs an audio recorder in the South Westland bush near Lake Moeraki (above) noting time and GPS location, as well as observations of the forest and other birds. “Rhys is one of the most 1977. He was tramping and heard “an ethe- Then, in 1984, he went back to follow up Buckingham and a colleague, Kerry Adams, superb bird people I’ve ever real tolling bell call” at dusk at the head of another report, and “things started to get managed to record some calls, and a bird they met. He’s a consummate Lake Monowai, near the location of a histori- really hot”. In a very remote branch of nicknamed ‘Titus Groan’ began responding bushman,” says South Island cal kōkako report. Freshwater, walking at dusk in heavy rain, he to them. They left an orange rind out as a lure Kōkako Trust Chairman Euan Kennedy. “The tragedy is he He was intrigued, and in 1979, after hearing heard a lone tui. A short time later, it flew and the next day discovered a perfect imprint was born 100 years too late. rumours of kōkako sightings on Stewart right over his head—and he realised it wasn’t of a bird’s bill—later identified as closely match- If he’d been born a century Island, Buckingham went bush for three a tui. It was a large grey bird, with a long tail ing a kōkako. They put out a model bird, played ago, he would have preserved months, searching Freshwater Valley, the and a slow, laboured wingbeat: “the blessed the call recordings, and hid up a tree, camera these birds for us. Or at least Ruggedy Range and the Rakeahua River for thing was a kōkako!” trained on the spot. They heard shuffling in he would have preserved knowledge of their biology any sign of the bird. He heard a few kōkako- The Wildlife Service sent in reinforcements, the undergrowth—but the bird never came

PETER HLAVACEK that we simply don’t have.” like calls, but saw nothing. and momentum seemed to be building. out. It was toying with them.

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In December that year, the celebrated We wait. Buckingham set up a meeting with DOC, the endless search. ornithologist John Kendrick flew in by heli- Tui and bellbirds continue singing merrily. planning to surprise staff there with the tape. But then, in May, there was another sight- copter and joined the search. My eyes scan the forest. I see a large bird in Then, a few weeks before the appointed ing in the Marsden Valley, just out of Nelson, “John didn’t muck around, he wanted to the shadows—it soon reveals itself as a kererū. day, MacKinnon’s house burned down— half an hour from Buckingham’s house. It hear the recordings. So we played them, and After half an hour, nothing unusual has taking with it the only copy of the precious was exciting enough that he put some camera the bird called outside our tent right above happened. We spend about five hours in the recording. traps and audio recorders into the bush. A our heads, making beautiful organ notes,” bush, occasionally playing back calls in dif- “So he had in his hands the unequivocal week later, I flew to Nelson to check it out. Buckingham recounts. “Johnny raced out of ferent locations—still nothing. evidence of South Island kōkako, the most the tent at such speed that he broke our mos- It’s anticlimactic, though not surprising. recent definite evidence, and he lost it.” quito netting. Kerry and I couldn’t contain Even on Stewart Island in the 1980s, Cameras, too, have been uncooperative. “‘THE CRY OF the crow is indescribably ourselves from bursting into laughter. Buckingham reminds me, “when it was rela- Buckingham’s best sighting was in 1996 in mournful. The wail of the wind through a “Here’s Johnny Kendrick straining up tively easy to get onto a bird, you couldn’t the Glenroy River, while he was doing a bird leafless forest is cheerful compared to it. trying to see the bird, and yet we knew damn just go in overnight and expect to hear it. You survey for Timberlands West Coast. He played Perhaps the whistling of the wind through well that even Kendrick, with all his expertise needed to spend weeks.” a tape, heard a bird call, stalked it, and then the neck of an empty whisky bottle is the and his keen vision, would have a hard time Of course, there might not be a kōkako saw a big dark-grey bird walking upside down nearest approach to it, and is sadly sugges- spotting it. there at all. And yet, there in the bush with along a branch, quite close. It flipped upright, tive of departed spirits.’” It’s a chilly May “He said, ‘This bird is impossible; it’s Buckingham, I find it hard to hold on to my and he saw straw-col- evening in Mapua, calling right beside me but there’s absolutely scepticism. oured wattles. He care- near Nelson, and, no sign of it!’ So it became known as the Grey For if the takahē was hiding all along in fully reached into his bag THEY PUT OUT A MODEL over smoked-fish pie Ghost. the Murchison Mountains, if the New Zealand for his camera… and it was BIRD, PLAYED THE and red wine, Rhys “Most people think we’re wrong, that the Storm Petrel—thought extinct for 100 gone, never to be found. CALL RECORDINGS, Buckingham is bird was extinct even then. And yet Johnny years—was breeding on the back of Little “It’s as though there is a AND HID UP A TREE, reading aloud from Kendrick, who was the best ornithologist I’ve Barrier, isn’t it possible that a handful of South jinx working here.” CAMERA TRAINED ON Westland explorer ever worked for, knew kōkako were there and Island kōkako may have survived too? Then there’s the THE SPOT. THEY HEARD Charlie Douglas’ 1899 people didn’t even believe him.” matter of the missing SHUFFLING IN THE description of what That summer was the start of years of feather—found on UNDERGROWTH—BUT he called the “New THE BIRD NEVER CAME dedicated searching, funded by the Forest YOU COULD ARGUE (as many do) that if the Stewart Island in 1986, Zealand crow”—the Service, the Wildlife Service and, from 1987, bird were still there, surely some kind of hard identified as kōkako, then OUT. IT WAS TOYING South Island kōkako. the Department of Conservation. evidence would have turned up by now. But lost for decades. [See WITH THEM. It’s not only for my When interest waned, Buckingham paid from the start, the quest for the South Island sidebar] benefit—environ- for his own trips. “I suppose I spent a lot of kōkako has been plagued by bad luck, and So many missed opportunities, so many mental campaigner Geoff Reid, a barefoot, money on it, but it was my hobby too, my worse timing. dead ends, so few rewards for so much work. peripatetic 24-year-old, has just hitched up passion.” In 2000, Buckingham was told about a How does Buckingham sustain the energy? from Glenorchy to help Buckingham follow He believes he’s seen the bird six times in for kōkako.” There’s no sign of possum guy called Dan MacKinnon, who reckoned Actually, he told me, he was about to give up the recent sighting. three decades, and heard its full ‘cathedral damage, and DOC has been dropping 1080 The South Island kōkako (above, rear) he’d seen a pair of kōkako and recorded their up this year. He resigned from the South Reid caught the bug early last year, when organ’ song just three times. But if any sceptic here for the past seven years. “It’s possible perches on a native fuchsia branch in song near his farm out the back of Charleston. Island Kōkako Trust, and thought about he met Buckingham by chance in the Marsden this 19th-century painting by Dutch heard what he has heard, Buckingham says, that’s kept the last few kōkako left in the area artist J G Keulemans. Without a photo Buckingham tracked him down in Westport, buying a bach on Great Barrier Island, having Valley. He happened to be in Nelson when he they would doubt no more. alive.” of the bird, we can’t be sure how life- and MacKinnon happened to have the a life again, getting away from the south and heard about a kōkako report there, so thought “This call is the most phenomenal sound,” Buckingham heard about this place from like the image is, says Rosie Ibbotson, recorder with him, so he played the tape. he would have a bit of a look. As he came out he says. “The cathedral tolling is integral to a Māori man in Greymouth, who told him an art historian from the University of “I virtually fell off my chair. It was around of the forest, he ran into Buckingham going the whole story of South Island kōkako for he’d seen multiple kōkako here in the early Canterbury. “For most of Aotearoa’s 20 seconds of full organ song, absolutely in—they didn’t find the bird, but they birds that he drew, Keulemans never me and is why I’m still looking for the con- 90s. “He said if we wanted to find kōkako, we actually encountered them live,” she unquestionable... He had borrowed a pro- found each other. founded turkeys! Once you’ve heard the needed to go to this little valley called Venture says. “He was based in the United fessional recorder, and he must have done “He’s kind of like a soul-brother,” tolling ‘bong’ of the South Island kōkako you Creek.” Kingdom at the time, and often had everything right, if he wasn’t pulling the Buckingham told me later. The pair are hooked on the bird for life.” In a natural clearing at the base of a fallen to prepare his own taxidermy models tits of a greenie.” The recording was have since gone on several kōkako tree, I sit down with Buckingham to listen. from bird skins he received.” Few so good, Buckingham wondered if expeditions together, and artefacts remain of the South Island “My ears are always turned on,” he says. “I kōkako—this nest (right, with replica MacKinnon had manufactured Buckingham sees aspects of his IN THE LUSH bush above Lake Moeraki, I’m move quietly, and if something is interesting, eggs) is one of them. It was collected it. But he and a colleague went younger self in Reid. “He’s an hoping to hear that bong for myself. that’s when I get into camouflage mode.” in Milford Sound in 1873 and is held by into the bush with the farmer, exceptional observer, very, very Buckingham leads the way, pointing out Just a few metres from here, in 2010, he Te Papa. who described seeing and fit, just runs up trees, and he navi- plump coprosma berries, fuchsia, rangiora: made his best recording of putative South ALEXANDER TURNBULL LIBRARY (ABOVE) TEPAPA (RIGHT) hearing kōkako so convinc- gates very well in the bush,” he says. “This is a very rich shrub hardwood habitat, Island kōkako—a ringing double note in a ingly they came to believe he Over dinner, Reid encourages there’s a profuseness and a diversity of ber- minor key. That’s what he plays now, from was genuine: “He had no reason Buckingham’s storytelling—asking rying plants, it’s an absolute ice-cream parlour his mobile phone hooked up to a speaker. to lie.” questions about dates, precise

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Geoff Reid installs a camera trap, while Rhys Buckingham examines the characteristic ‘moss-grubbing’ sign he believes is associated with South Island kōkako. The ‘powder puffs’ of moss have been snipped off from their attachment to the forest floor or fallen branches, and—strangely—grouped together and arranged, more as a pattern of behaviour than feeding. They never reattach, but continue to grow, enabling Buckingham to approximately date the sign: these are several years old. This behaviour isn’t known for any New Zealand animal, but Buckingham has frequently observed it in places he’s heard or seen kōkako. “It’s a

TIM CUFF unique sign that in itself is becoming extinct,” he says.

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Reid and Buckingham look for signs of kōkako in the Marsden Valley, near Nelson (far left). Don Sullivan’s sightings there are too recent to feature on this map of reports published in Notornis in 2014 by Golden Bay kōkako chasers Alec Milne and Richard Stocker. They assessed 105 reports of South Island kōkako between 1990 and 2012, and the map shows the 36 the authors judged to be most convincing. That meant a close sighting of a bird fitting the description of kōkako, either by an experienced observer, or where wattles or ‘defining behaviour’ were also seen—running along branches or logs, leaping or bounding.

locations. “I’m not working much or study- That evening, Buckingham also reads to us tells me that he had difficulty even then. It and most mellow-toned I ever heard a bird already explored, perhaps finding a bird early May. Just 15 minutes from central ing at uni so I figure the universe is my class- from Herbert Guthrie-Smith’s 1925 book, Bird indicates they’re not an easy bird.” produce. When singing, they cast their eyes believed to be extinct is the equivalent of dis- Nelson, past joggers, dog-walkers and the room; I’m trying to learn from our elders,” Life on Island and Shore. Guthrie-Smith, a This is one of Buckingham’s key rejoinders upwards like a street musician expecting covering a new species, mapping a new valley, toy-town of a new subdivision, the road ends he says. “There’s definitely an ongoing chain, Hawke’s Bay farmer, spent four seasons on to the sceptics, something he mentions again coppers from a fourth-storey window, and naming a mountain range. in a steep-sided valley. On one side there’s a trying to pick up where someone else left off. Stewart Island trying to photograph the and again—that this bird is a lot quieter than pour forth three or four notes, softer and “Charlie’s a cult hero for me; I would have mature pine plantation, half of the other has It’s like a treasure hunt—you listen to all these ‘orange-wattled crow’ and its nest—a bird its North Island cousin. “We rely so much on sweeter than an Aeolian harp or a well-toned been his best friend, I think!” Buckingham recently been clear-felled and replanted, but clues and try to string it together and keep locals assured him was, if not common, at least a bird being vocal, and if you’ve got a bird that clarinet.’ tells me later. They’re both a bit reclusive, in the middle there’s a dark, rugged slice of the search alive.” still around. “‘In vain, trembling with hope hardly ever calls, you’re going to have “Now,” Buckingham asks, “does [Douglas] both bushmen, both bird-lovers and bache- very well-tended native bush. Like me, Reid is staying over at and fear, we trudged the forest from daylight immense difficulty in pinning it down.” mean people know the bird but don’t hear its lors. “We have so much in common,” he says. Sullivan is one of the people taking care Buckingham’s little two-room house: ‘think until dusk; in vain we climbed the Remarkables; Buckingham finds confirmation of his song? We can’t tell, but that would fit into “I was just born 100 years too late.” of it. The gruff retired butcher has devoted of it as a DOC hut’, says Buckingham. (In fact, in vain we beat through the seaside scrub. We theory in Charlie Douglas’ account of the what we’re finding, which is that when we’re the past 10 years to the Marsden Valley. Some neither of these two outdoorsmen actually never heard or saw the crow.’” birds’ song, which he reads with gusto: lucky enough to get onto a kōkako, extremely months he spends upwards of 100 hours in sleeps in the house; Reid puts up an inflatable The description resonates strongly with “‘Few people are aware that the crow is a rarely does it sing.” THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Buckingham, the bush: making and maintaining tracks, mattress on the deck, and at the end of the Buckingham. “It describes exactly my expe- song-bird, as it is only in the depths of the I start to wonder whether Buckingham Reid and I drive to the Marsden Valley pulling out old man’s beard, installing nest night the older man retires, as he always does, riences in the early days on Stewart Island,” forest they can be heard to perfection. Their sees himself as a kind of latter-day Charlie Conservation Area to meet Don Sullivan, the boxes—and coordinating a team that lays

to his ‘cubby house’ in the garden.) he says. “So perhaps it’s personal for me. It notes are very few, but they are the sweetest TIM CUFF Douglas. With so much of New Zealand guy who believes he saw a kōkako there in and monitors 750 rodent traps.

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Sullivan’s had several encounters with huge amount of circumstantial evidence.” resources to help people like myself that are The second problem is ruling out other birds he now believes were the same lone A couple of historical reports mention willing to go out there. All I need is a bit of birds—particularly tui and kākā. “Even on kōkako, including two sightings this year. The moss disturbance in relation to kōkako, and food.” the North Island, after all the time I’ve spent most recent time, he explains, he was enlarg- over and over, starting in Stewart Island in Right now, he’s got a weekend free, so he with them, occasionally a tui would catch me ing a track, when he happened to look up and the early 80s, Buckingham says when he’s prepares to spend it sleeping out in the out. I’d hear something and think, kōkako, see a blue-grey bird landing in a nearby pine found fresh moss-grubbing, it’s coincided Marsden Valley. but listen for a few more minutes, hear more tree. He got closer, and saw it had a curved with hearing kōkako-like calls. He calls me a few days later, excited: “I notes, and realise it’s actually a tui.” beak and a black eye patch, and was between These particular powder-puffs could be heard Don’s bird!” Reid was perched on the “When North Island kōkako really get a tui and a woodpigeon in size. “I thought, I several years old, he hillside looking back going with their song, it’s like a full sentence, gotta get a photo, so I rushed down to my believes, because of the “IT JUST RUNG OUT, A across at Sullivan’s complex sequences they put together lasting pack, which was 15 or 20 metres down the way the moss is regrow- PERFECT MEW NOTE, report site when an 30 seconds or more. And that’s one of things track,” Sullivan says. “I grabbed the bag, ran ing. “It’s very obvious if IT WAS INCREDIBLE.” unusual tone made him that if we got it from a South Island area I’d up trying to get my camera out… it took off.” it’s been detached quite AFTER A MINUTE, sit up. The tui started think it was pretty convincing.” To Buckingham’s chagrin, he forgot to look recently.” He’s since ONE MORE NOTE. HE copying the sound, and She has been intrigued by some of the for wattles. found fresher signs in FELT UNEXPECTEDLY then he heard it again, things she’s heard from the south. Reid and Buckingham find Sullivan’s the Marsden Valley area, EMOTIONAL. “IT louder. “It just rung out, Buckingham sent her his 2010 Venture Creek report pretty convincing. His descriptions and set up motion-sen- WAS A SAD CALL, a perfect mew note, it recording—the double note—and Molles says are thorough, “he doesn’t have anyone to sor video cameras at MELANCHOLY. A PRETTY was incredible.” After a it’s the most persuasive one yet. “If I’d heard please or anything to prove,” says Reid, and those sites, but they so SPECIAL MOMENT.” minute, one more note. TIM CUFF it on the North Island I would have thought the intensive trapping may just have given far haven’t revealed He felt unexpectedly it was a kōkako, but I wouldn’t have been 100 one or two birds a chance. If there is a kōkako what’s making them. emotional. “It was a sad Laura Molles, an expert on North Island per cent certain, unless I’d been watching a there, it’s most likely to be a wily old male Buckingham speculates it’s a kōkako call, melancholy. A pretty special moment.” The kōkako chasers leave audio recorders kōkako song behaviour and senior lecturer kōkako right nearby or heard a lot more song.” in likely places, hoping to pick up unusual (kōkako can live more than 20 years), as mating display, but without eyewitness or The calls sounded like they came from bird calls. They generate a lot of data to sift at Lincoln University, says there are several She doesn’t rule out the possibility of a females are disproportionally killed by video evidence, there’s no proof—like every- very close to Buckingham’s high-quality audio through, and in isolation, ornithologists and problems with identifying kōkako from a South Island bird, though. “Not capturing predators. thing else concerning the Grey Ghost. recorder. Reid realised only later that it had DOC officials don’t consider recordings of recording. The first is that we don’t have any sounds doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not A week later, the kōkako team and I head Geoff Reid wants to be the one who proves been set to stop recording from 1pm to 2pm kōkako-like calls definitive evidence of the unequivocal South Island kōkako song to there—if there are very few birds, they’re not up one of Sullivan’s tracks to the spot. Reid the South Island kōkako isn’t extinct. “I want each day, to give Buckingham a chance to bird. It’s too easy to mis-identify them. “Two compare it against. going to have much reason to sing.” big problem birds on the South Island are kākā changes the SD memory cards on the audio to photograph that bird. I want it to be change the cards without corrupting the files. and tui, both of which can make a huge range “So the next best thing I can do is compare Other North Island kōkako experts are recorders—Buckingham will take them home recorded. But the task is so daunting.” Reid heard his three mew calls at 1.13 p.m. of sounds and have really flexible songs which it to what a North Island kōkako sounds like, more sceptical. Ian Flux, former chair of the and painstakingly go through them on the He would happily spend months in the can change from place to place,” says North and even that is quite complicated. The birds Kōkako Recovery Group, believes there’s no computer, scanning the waveforms for low- bush, camera cocked (and Instagram at the Island kōkako expert Laura Molles. can sound really different from place to place, chance any orange-wattled crows survived frequency notes. Then to the top of the ridge, ready). But there’s a limit to how much he can EVEN IF THE recorder had been switched on, and over time, and can have a huge variety of in sufficient numbers to keep breeding over so he can show me the unique ‘moss-grub- do as a volunteer. “There aren’t enough the calls wouldn’t have closed the case. notes,” Molles says. the past half century. bing’ sign he believes is a key part of the story of South Island kōkako. Close to the edge of the rough 4WD track, Nilsson remembers the passed it on to the Dominion Callaeidae, or New Zealand vaporised into mist. But it Miskelly. “When we looked at he points out a scattering of half a dozen loose BIRDS OF A FEATHER “whoops of delight” from the Museum (now Te Papa). Staff wattlebird family—of which the turns out he may be right. the morphology we realised it discs of moss about the size of a saucer. expedition members, certain there sent it to an expert in the kōkako is one. The feather in Te Papa’s was very unlikely to be Buckingham calls them ‘powder-puffs’ and they had found solid proof of Netherlands, and there the trail Twenty-five years on, DNA possession is missing an blackbird. So which set of the the kōkako’s survival at last. gets dusty. The feather was testing was now much more aftershaft, and looks a bit that’s exactly what they look like. “It’s as tests can we believe?” IN 1986, ON a Wildlife Service Crouchley took it to the lost, and all mention of it advanced and affordable, so Te different to the one though a pair of scissors has come and clipped Te Papa now plans to get hunt for kōkako on Stewart Otago Museum’s then head of disappeared for a few decades. Papa did an in-house genetic Buckingham and Nilsson the feather DNA tested again the bottom of it,” he says. Island with Rhys Buckingham sciences, zoologist John Darby. In 2012, Colin Miskelly, Te test on the feather. On the first remember. “There’s no reason by an independent lab, if it can A few years ago, Sullivan was showing and Ron Nilsson, team member “There was no suggestion Papa’s curator of terrestrial attempt, no DNA was to expect it’s not the same extract enough fresh genetic Dave Crouchley found a about what he suspected it vertebrates, heard about the detected; the second time, a feather,” says Miskelly. “But Buckingham through the Marsden Valley material. “There is so much blue-grey feather on the wet was, he just asked my opinion,” feather from Buckingham. He match came back: a blackbird. unfortunately its journey after one of his sightings. “I saw this moss intangible information about moss, right after hearing a few recalls Darby. “Feathers have went looking for it, and Buckingham was hasn’t been documented as what people have seen and grubbing sign and I just about flipped—I’ve notes of kōkako-like song. “It very unique structures. I discovered it was was disbelieving, assuming there thoroughly as we would have been looking for it for years, ever since I saw had rained the night before but studied it for around 20 hours, I uncatalogued, but still in the had been a mix-up, or a liked... a lot of uncertainty can heard—this could potentially it on Stewart Island,” says Buckingham. the feather was dry, so it must looked at a range of birds it museum’s collection, inside an blackbird had used a kōkako creep in over 30 years.” be hard evidence,” says Miskelly. The sign hasn’t been scientifically have been fresh,” says might be, and the length of the envelope containing feather on its nest, leaving There’s uncertainty, too, Hard evidence that described (though Buckingham is working Crouchley. after-shaft suggested to me correspondence from the some DNA behind. It seemed about the DNA evidence. It had a long secondary there was a good possibility it Dutch expert. The letters like he was clutching at straws, This year, the Te Papa team Buckingham and Crouchley on a paper) and isn’t known behaviour for feather—known as an was kōkako.” precisely described the feather, unable to accept that yet decided to re-examine the were right, and there were North Island kōkako—or in fact any other after-shaft—sticking out at the Darby wasn’t a feather and included the expert’s view another fragment of evidence feather under a microscope. kōkako on Stewart Island… 30

New Zealand animal. “So people could fairly base. specialist, however, so he that it was from a bird of the TE PAPA for the Grey Ghost had “It was confounding,” says years ago. be critical… but [the theory] is based on a

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Geoff Reid camps out in the Marsden Valley, hoping to find evidence of the kōkako Don Sullivan believes he saw in May. “It would be such a shame to lose it. I’m not an expert, I’m just someone that’s interested and passionate, but where’s the evidence it’s extinct? That’s what gets me,” he says. He’d love to spend more time looking for it. “The [South Island Kōkako] Trust was really good to me last year— they even paid me.” This year, though, funding has run out, so Reid has to search in his spare time. “Otherwise the search dies. We’re not going to be able to prove

TIM CUFF whether it exists or not if we’re not in the bush.”

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“Absolutely not. I don’t think it’s scientifi- “It became clear that after 30 years of something.” But it will take a photograph, an the road. He thought he would boil water for cally plausible,” he says. Taxidermied museum specimens may be all that remains of the South looking for this bird, these helter-skelter fly- unequivocal recording or a strong sighting a cup of tea and set up his tarpaulin, before Island kōkako, which were often seen in large groups, according to the In the early 2000s, his group sent observ- records of 19th-century writers. “Never again in human experience ing-squad approaches weren’t working. Some by multiple people to change DOC’s stance. night came and he was alone in the bush. At ers out to report sites in the South Island for can that grand sight of twenty kōkakos in single file be seen hopping pretty compelling evidence had turned up, “If they are discovered, we’ll be in there dawn, he planned to head back up the ridge, three months. They came back with nothing, through the bush like a flock of sheep, for its ground-feeding habits but we still didn’t have definitive evidence boots and all,” says Sanson. playing his tapes, stalking the wild places of he says. have laid this slate-blue sylph open to the attacks of enemies,” wrote that it exists,” he says. But Kennedy is concerned a ‘disquieting’ South Westland in search of a wild thing, a “Kōkako have quite small territories… So Mona Gordon in ‘Children of Tane’ in 1938. “Slipping through the “Our role is to make the public of New new ideology he sees creeping into interna- phantom remnant chord of the lost symphony low mānuka scrub, there goes the grey wraith of kōkako, people going with tape recorders immediately passing to inevitable extinction, except where the Zealand aware that this bird was extraordi- tional conservation—the concept of ‘triage’, of our forests. after a report should be able to pick the birds inmost seclusion of the southern forest serves to narily special, and that it might still be there, or planned extinction—could give policy- And what if he finds one? Or not one, but up or hear the calls again,” Flux says. turn that ghost into lingering reality.” and then go and find the bloody thing, and makers an excuse not to waste money on the holy grail—a pair of blue-grey, orange- He doesn’t buy Buckingham’s theory that AUCKLAND WAR MEMORIAL MUSEUM TĀMAKI PAENGA HIRA / LB8554 let the experts get on with saving it. So long species seen to be ‘hopeless cases’. wattled New Zealand crows? (Ron Nilsson the birds are just quiet. as it’s not too late.” “If that was the prevailing attitude back has had some expensive whisky set aside for “If there were birds left in the South Island key members of the brotherhood (and New life was breathed into the search in in the 70s we wouldn’t the past 20 years, you would think they would be really keen to yes, they are all men). 2013, when the species’ conservation status have black robins waiting for that happy find a mate and interact. So if you played even Nilsson has been looking for was reclassified—the South Island kōkako is today, we wouldn’t “ONCE YOU EMBRACE THE day.) a North Island call it should be similar enough the bird even longer than no longer officially ‘extinct’ but ‘data defi- have kākāpō. We NOTION OF PLANNED The questions pile that they’d respond. And that’s what we’ve Buckingham, and describes cient’. That made it easier for the wouldn’t have takahē EXTINCTIONS, YOU up. How would we found in the last remnants of North Island himself as the ‘Wikipedia of Ornithological Society’s records appraisal or North Island THROW AWAY THE MORAL catch them? Would populations: they were desperate to interact South Island kōkako”. Kennedy committee to accept a 2007 sighting near kōkako,” he says. ARGUMENT FOR FUNDING they be brought into with the tape recorder.” was leading the eradication Reefton, the first since 1967. “Once you embrace CONSERVATION AT ALL. captivity? Would we In fact, Flux doesn’t think any more money programme on Codfish Island The trust is now fundraising to be able to the notion of planned IF YOU TAKE IT TO ITS crossbreed them with should be spent on the search, when the North (Whenua Hou) in the early 1980s put experienced people like Buckingham and extinctions, you throw LOGICAL EXTREME, North Island kōkako Island kōkako could do with more funding. when he met Buckingham and Reid into targeted sites for long enough to have away the moral argu- WE’LL END UP WITH A to improve the genetic “I really question the idea of putting money got drawn into the search. a chance of encountering “what must abso- ment for funding con- LANDSCAPE FULL OF diversity? Which in year after year into looking for a species These days, he isn’t totally lutely be very few birds indeed”, Kennedy says. servation at all. If you BLACK-BACKED GULLS AND island would we shift that probably doesn’t exist when we could be persuaded the South Island They’re also hopeful the Department of take it to its logical GORSE, BECAUSE THAT’S them to? Or would we doing something concrete to help a species kōkako still survives—he says Conservation will provide, if not funding, at extreme, we’ll end up ALL WE CAN AFFORD.” leave them where they that’s currently threatened. he’s an “optimistic sceptic”. least some logistical support—to train front- with a landscape full are, build a fence and “At some stage you have to look at these “I know the mathemati- desk staff to take kōkako reports seriously, of black-backed gulls and gorse, because that’s line it with traps? things in a logical way and say, what’s the cal probability of the birds and put up posters about the bird in backcoun- all we can afford.” “We’d love to be in a position of agonising balance of effort we should put into some- being there are infinitesi- try huts, so that rangers, trampers, anglers about these things,” says Kennedy. “Saving thing that no one’s found for the last 30 years, mally low. Small population and hunters know what to look out for. them would be a huge task. But that’s what compared with something that’s really going ecology tells us that chance This raises the question: Where has the RHYS BUCKINGHAM IS 68 now, and the frus- we’re good at. down the gurgler right now.” plays a greater and greater government been in this story? trations of the long search are piling up. “The conservation industry in New South Island kōkako sightings are just role in the fate of a population “DOC’s attitude has been, and this is so “What I’ve seen in these last 30 years is Zealand is looked upon internationally as an wishful thinking, he says. the smaller it becomes. And deeply frustrating, ‘You guys go and do the an increasingly desperate and difficult situ- outrageously audacious pioneer. DOC is “We also get continual sightings of kākāpō these birds, if they are still work, and if you find the bird, we’ll help you ation. I lived for what I called my ‘fix of the stuffed full of people who are world leaders in the North Island and moose in Fiordland. there, must be in desperately save it,’” says Kennedy. bongs’, this beautiful cathedral call, but I have in their field. That extends not just to looking People in general are known to be poor low numbers,” says Kennedy. “So it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. They not heard that for many, many years.” after critically endangered birds, but also to eyewitnesses.” “But I also know—and we have won’t help us find the bird, and so it will drift In his darker moments, he blames himself ridding islands of pests. The world beats a learned from other birds like the takahē— to extinction, and they’ll say, ‘We always knew for not finding the bird in those early days path to our door for advice and expertise. that mathematical probabilities aren’t the it was extinct, so we’re pleased we didn’t waste when there was money and momentum. “So if any country has the tools to save YET THE PEOPLE who are looking for the South same as biological probabilities. So while any money on it.’” “I thought in the 1980s we could not fail, the South Island kōkako, it’s this one. It’s Island kōkako can’t be easily dismissed as my head says mathematically they can’t DOC’s Director-General, Lou Sanson, says this bird is here, surely we’d be able to save us.” sloppy observers or nutters. Among those be there, my heart says, biologically, the department did help to fund some expe- it. But unfortunately South Island kōkako is under the spell of the Grey Ghost are scien- there’s still a chance. ditions in the first 15 years of the search, but several steps up in difficulty than any other Kate Evans is a freelance writer, producer tists and rangers with vast experience of the “And if there is a chance, we over the past decade has pulled back. bird,” he says. “This is a bird that doesn’t want and now regular contributor to New bush and New Zealand’s rare birds. must seize it.” “If something interesting comes up then to be found.” Zealand Geographic. Former Wildlife Service ranger Ron In 2010, Nilsson, we’ll re-engage, but we’ve given it a lot of But yet… he can’t help himself from check- Nilsson, who worked with Don Merton to Buckingham and some resource and time already. There is not ing, just one more time. It was dusk when I save the kākāpō and black robin, and ecolo- others set up the South enough information to justify putting more left him at Venture Creek in June. He walked gist Euan Kennedy, DOC’s national adviser Island Kōkako Trust to government money in at the moment.” off down a boggy four-wheel-drive track to FROM THE ARCHIVE for island biosecurity and a founding member do just that. Kennedy is the Sanson has known Buckingham for his hidden campsite—a small clearing of www.nzgeographic.co.nz/archives of the Yellow-Eyed Penguin Trust, are both current chairman. decades and believes “he’s certainly seen marshy ground a few hundred metres from Kōkako, Issue 87, Sep–Oct 2007

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