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[Bird noises (15 secs)]
[Narrator] The call of the kōkako once enlivened the extensive forests of the lower North Island.
However, during the nineteenth century, as European settlers cleared the native bush,
the bird's habitat shrunk and their numbers dramatically declined.
Today, visitors to the Pūkaha-Mt Bruce Wildlife Reserve, 30 kilometres north of Masterton,
can see kōkako and other rare native bird species including kākā, kiwi, and takahē,
in a protected environment.
The curious hopping motion of the kōkako, its favoured method of moving about on the
forest floor, is partly responsible for its decline. Pests introduced in the nineteenth
century such as cats, rats, possums, ferrets, stoats and weasels found these ground-dwelling
birds easy prey.
Kōkako barely survived, clinging on in a few isolated central North Island forests.
Today they have a more certain future, thanks to intensive conservation of the species in
mainland refuges like Pūkaha-Mt Bruce. The kōkako are part of an ambitious programme
to create a 'mainland island' at Pūkaha-Mt Bruce. Rather than have enclosed predator-proof
fences, the reserve has a ring of predator traps. However, predators do occasionally
get in. Recently 12 kiwi were killed by a rogue ferret that took some time to be eliminated.
The beautiful huia was a similar bird to the kōkako, though darker in colour. The huia's
most distinctive characteristic was its long curved beak, especially in the female, ideal
for probing rotten logs and trees in search of insects. To Māori, the haunting call of
the huia was regarded as the most melodious of all, and inspired many songs.
Huia did not often fly but sprang about on their long legs. Māori valued the huia's
tail feathers, which were worn on special occasions by people of high rank, and stored
in carved wooden boxes called waka huia.
The rapid decline of huia was due to the new predatory mammals that were introduced in
the 1890s, as well as bush clearance and hunting. Legislation to stop the birds being hunted
was passed in 1892, but it was too late to avoid their extinction. The last, unconfirmed,
sightings of this bird were in the 1920s.
Pūkaha-Mt Bruce has been remarkably successful in recreating a sense of the extensive forest
that existed throughout the lower North Island several hundred years ago. It was so dense
that early settlers, faced with the massive task of creating farmland from it, were filled
with despair. Much of it was burned off rather than chopped down.
[Newspaper voice] When these areas were in full blaze, the rumble of the flames and the
vibration of the air was like thunder.
[Narrator] By the 1870s, even after 30 years of effort from settlers, a huge expanse of
*** forest still extended from north of Masterton to southern Hawke's Bay. Known as
the 'Seventy Mile Bush', this great forest took decades to clear.
Like the English settlers before them, Scandinavian immigrants were lured here in the 1870s with
the promise of cheap land in a fertile 'subtropical' climate. They knew little about this fascinating
land on the other side of the world where 'the feet of its inhabitants are pointing
towards us'. There were shipboard rumours of 'wild animals, snakes and English people'.
When they arrived at a series of isolated forest clearings in the Seventy Mile Bush,
their task seemed overwhelming. Nevertheless, the Scandinavians persisted and eventually
succeeded in transforming the landscape. During the 1880s the railway slowly progressed through
the bush. Sawmilling began, and tree by tree the land was cleared to become productive
farmland. The Scandinavian legacy is evident in towns with names such as Norsewood and
Dannevirke.