Kagu
p. Let me tell you about the time I met a kagu. In case you’ve never seen a picture of one before, the kagu, Rhynochetos jubatus, is the national bird of New Caledonia, and was [“extremely endangered”:http://www.oneworldwildlife.org/newcaledonia.html] in the early 1980’s, getting down to about 60 or 70 individuals in the world. The kagu is the only surviving representative of an entire family of birds which was once endemic in New Caledonia. Their problem—as with many island bird species—was that they were totally unprepared by evolution for the introduction of mammals like pigs, dogs, rats and cats. In many ways, kagus are rather odd birds. They nest on the ground, bark like dogs, hiss like snakes when threatened, and can’t really fly. None of these superhero-like abilities equipped them well for dealing with ground-dwelling mammalian predators, and when the effects of habitat reduction were factored in, it looked as if the kagu was doomed to go the way of the dodo or the [“moa”:http://www.rousette.org.uk/mt-static/blog/archives/000260.html].
p. Luckily, a concerted effort was made to protect the species, lead by a remarkable man called Yves Letocart (who I was lucky enough to meet while I was there). Non-native predators were trapped or shot, and a captive breeding programme established to build the numbers up before reintroducing individuals back into the wild. Now, there are around 1,000 individuals in New Caledonia, and they are breeding successfully in the wild. Since they are an endemic species, this is 1,000 in the world—still a very rare bird, but in a much better state than before.
