Chatham Island Taiko

At a Glance

The Chatham Island Tāiko (also known as the Magenta Petrel) is among the world’s rarest seabirds, but this wasn’t always the case. Evidence of the bird’s remains in middens from the Moriori, the first human settlers of these islands hundreds of years ago, indicates that the species was once quite common, and people used the birds as a regular food source.

The Chatham Island Tāiko is now only known to nest in one place: a closely protected site in the forested Tuku catchment of southern Chatham Island . The birds mate for life and lay one egg a year, residing in deep burrows during incubation. Once the chicks are ready to fledge, they climb nearby trees and fly out to sea. Outside the breeding season, adult birds have been known to travel great distances across the south Pacific Ocean, including all the way to South America. The species is relatively long-lived; for example, a breeding pair that was first captured in 1982 was still breeding in 2015.

The Chatham Island Taiko was thought to be extinct for nearly a century, and was known from only one specimen collected in 1867, until it was rediscovered in 1978. The species’ decline began centuries ago. The species was harvested by Polynesian settlers, followed by widespread forest clearing after Europeans arrived and introduced predators such as cats, rats, pigs, and weka that prey on eggs, chicks, and adults now being the dominant threat.

Intensive efforts to remove non-native predators in recent decades has helped the species’ numbers begin to inch up slightly. Thanks, for example, to the construction of a fence, livestock can no longer access the areas of Tuku Nature Reserve where the Chatham Island Tāiko nests, preventing further habitat degradation.

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