By ANNE BESTON and NZPA
New Zealand has earned special mention in a global environment report.
The United Nations report, due to be presented last night in London, says several species of albatross and petrel, which breed only in New Zealand waters, are vulnerable to fouling from boats and fishers' long lines.
Included
are the Chatham albatross (5000 breeding pairs remain), grey-headed albatross (up to 9000 pairs) and black petrel (2000 pairs).
The species are outside the reach of managed breeding programmes.
As well, blue duck (whio) seem likely to join New Zealand's extinction list, mainly as a result of stoats.
Conservation efforts have assured the survival, for now, of the Chatham Island petrel (up to 150 pairs), Chatham Island robin (250), kakapo (86) and kokako (more than 1000).
But kiwi, kaka and yellowheads (mohoua) are soon likely to remain only on islands and in sanctuaries.
"New Zealand is special on a world scale because of its long isolation," Department of Conservation bird expert Graeme Taylor said yesterday.
Among species to become extinct within European times were the bush wren (last recorded in 1972), New Zealand thrush (unconfirmed reports till 1963) and laughing owl (1914).
The huia, which disappeared in the 1920s, is probably New Zealand's most striking extinct bird, the only species in the world where males and females had different beak shapes. It was a large wattle bird related to kokako and saddleback (tieke).
A European fashion craze for the huia's large, white-tipped, black tail feathers spelled the bird's end.
The Haast eagle, the world's largest eagle, the 11 to 14 species of moa, and the adzebill, an 80cm-tall weka-like bird, succumbed in the 1300s to predation by Maori and dogs and rats that came with them to New Zealand.
Ironically, the Polynesian dog (kuri) is now also extinct.
The hunt continues for the South Island kokako, but ornithologists believe it's likely to also be extinct.
New Zealand scientists have been closely involved in the report, contributing a chapter on Antarctica.
Staff at Canterbury University's Gateway Antarctica, including Dr Alan Hemmings, project manager Michelle Finnemore and director Professor Bryan Storey, highlighted environmental threats to the continent including global warming, unsustainable fishing and depletion of the ozone layer.
The UN document, the bi-annual Environment Programme (UNEP) GEO-3 report, estimates a quarter of the world's mammal species and 12 per cent of birds - including 15 per cent of New Zealand species - face extinction over the next 30 years.
It lists 11,047 endangered plant and animal species. Of these, 1130 are mammals and 1183 are birds.
The report says the Earth is in its sixth and most devastating period of mass extinction, with possibly hundreds of species dying out each year.
Human influence is the main culprit, and scientists believe the sixth wave is between 1000 and 10,000 times greater than the rate species would be lost naturally.
The UN report has urged biodiversity to be listed high on the agenda at the Rio+10 Earth Summit in South Africa, in August.
NZ Birds
United Nations Environment Programme
nzherald.co.nz/environment
UN alert on threat to birds
By ANNE BESTON and NZPA
New Zealand has earned special mention in a global environment report.
The United Nations report, due to be presented last night in London, says several species of albatross and petrel, which breed only in New Zealand waters, are vulnerable to fouling from boats and fishers' long lines.
Included
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