Yet a poor Te Anau farmer’s exclamation on seeing the exhibit–“Why, them’s the birds we lived on all last winter!”–was just one of many persistent reports of takahe sightings in the early 1900s, all of which were hushed up or dismissed.īetween the laughing owl display and a cabinet with five glass-eyed kakapo, a circular window frames a painted backdrop of snowcapped Fiordland mountains. Last century, mountain skins for museum display was regarded as successful species preservation, and this specimen, which met its end 100 years ago at the mouth of a dog and has since resided in the Otago Museum, was long considered the last of its kind. The tiny Stephens Island wren, Auckland Islands merganser, New Zealand little bittern, Chatham Islands rail-all defunct. South Island kokako: missing, presumed dead. Huia, with its crescent-moon beak and faded orange wattles: died December 28, 1907. The thumb-sized bush wren: “Slipped away quietly in 1972.” New Zealand quail: “Died in 1869.” The South Island thrush, last seen in 1902. Each has a black-lettered epitaph explaining the time and circumstances of death. There is despair in this pose, the do-or-die abandon of a species making its last stand.Įlsewhere in this Madame Tussaud’s hall of faunal fame lie the less conspicuous and the less renowned-creatures that lacked teeth and claws, or a size that earned them notoriety. What is most striking is its stance: the back arched, the ears flattened, the mouth locked in the freeze-framed snarl of a cornered animal. Another glass cage houses a Tasmanian wolf-ivory-yellow of coat, banded brown across the hindquarters, its rat-like tail an anachronism for a creature that could otherwise pass for a streetwise but famished mongrel. One cabinet, lit in film noir style, preserves the memory of 11 moa, their skeletons wired together from bones discovered in caves and swamps. Here, arranged with the methodical tidiness of a cemetery, is a record of evolution’s casualties: a menagerie of the dead and the has-beens, whose insular world changed faster than they could follow. On the Fourth Floor of Dunedin’s Otago Museum, above the display of ships and ocean voyages, lies a sombre animal mausoleum-a gallery of extinction. Stainless steel is ideal for the rings, which are specified by the BTO (British Trust for Ornithology), because it is lightweight, durable and does not corrode – ensuring it will not be harmful to the bird, whilst enduring the rigours of outdoor life, and ocean passing intercontinental migration.Īs DSM we don’t make anything as small as bird rings, but our chemical resistant laboratory sinks are the ‘Top Flight’ solution for the modern lab.Written by Derek Grzelewski Photographed by Rod Morris When birds are caught again – usually by skilled and experienced ‘Ringers’ using fine mesh nets called ‘mist nets’ or netting tunnel traps called ‘Heligoland traps, both deigned to catch the birds without harming them -’ that have already been ringed, scientists can update the details, and a pattern or model of movement and behaviour can be established. The stainless steel rings are typically given a unique identification number etched or engraved into the surface, which can, in turn, be associated with details of the bird’s species, age, and its condition and location, and entered into shared global databases for the benefit of the international scientific community. ‘Ringing’ of wild birds has been commonplace for several decades, to allow the tracking of migratory species and provide scientific data for the analysis of bird behaviours and populations. Stainless steel continues to ‘ring the changes’ for ornithologists (bird scientists) everywhere.
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