I was lucky enough to spend a few days rafting the Landsborough River a few years ago with @queenstownrafting and my good friend @talman, which is a really remote part of New Zealand, and probably the most picturesque and wild valley I’ve ever been to. While humans rarely pass through this area, like all of New Zealand it’s been overrun by predators (stoats, possums, rats, feral cats, etc) that have decimated New Zealand’s native bird population. The birds never stood a chance, having evolved in a world without mammals. Since humans arrived in New Zealand and brought these creatures with… I was lucky enough to spend a few days rafting the Landsborough River a few years ago with @queenstownrafting and my good friend @talman, which is a really remote part of New Zealand, and probably the most picturesque and wild valley I’ve ever been to. While humans rarely pass through this area, like all of New Zealand it’s been overrun by predators (stoats, possums, rats, feral cats, etc) that have decimated New Zealand’s native bird population. The birds never stood a chance, having evolved in a world without mammals. Since humans arrived in New Zealand and brought these creatures with them, close to half of the native species here have gone extinct, with many of the rest close to extinction now. That’s why groups like @predatorfreenz are so important as we are trying to save these incredible birds and fix our past mistakes. An amazing study was just released about the Landsborough that after 20 years of monitoring, regular predator control like 1080 drops has worked and the birdsong is finally coming back to this very special corner of New Zealand. It is @docgovtnz’s longest-running survey of its kind, and an important data set for tracking how predator control affects bird populations. 🦎 This is really amazing news - one of my biggest dreams is to have the birdsong return to our forests and that we might get a glimpse of what New Zealand might have been like ️ a big hearty and humble thank you to everyone involved in conservation here for all your hard work - what you’ve done is really making a difference and means so much to a lot of people like me #predatorfree2050 #birdnerd #aotoearoa #birdsong #savethebirds #kiakaha I was lucky enough to spend a few days rafting the Landsborough River a few years ago with @queenstownrafting and my good friend @talman, which is a really remote part of New Zealand, and probably the most picturesque and wild valley I’ve ever been to. While humans rarely pass through this area, like all of New Zealand it’s been overrun by predators (stoats, possums, rats, feral cats, etc) that have decimated New Zealand’s native bird population. The birds never stood a chance, having evolved in a world without mammals. Since humans arrived in New Zealand and brought these creatures with…
