Badly-behaved bachelors get new mates

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All images © Karori Sanctuary and show female bellbirds caught on Kapiti Island and released at Karori Sanctuary.

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MEDIA RELEASE & PHOTOS
17 July 2007

Badly-behaved bachelors get new mates

Conservation staff at Wellington’s Karori Sanctuary are hoping that a new conscription of female bellbirds from Kapiti Island will help to restore peace to paradise.

A mysterious shortage of female bellbirds at the world-first urban wildlife sanctuary caused feathers to fly during the last breeding season as males struggled to find a mate. In a desperate bid to ‘bag a bird’, frustrated ‘bachelors’ resorted to dirty tactics - pestering paired-off females and invading other males’ territories. ‘Divorces’ were commonplace as females submitted to the relentless pursuit of new suitors, and fledglings and less aggressive nectar feeders like hihi were caught in the crossfire as wannabe alpha males fought an escalating battle of one-upmanship.

With the new mating season fast approaching, Sanctuary staff - concerned at the species’ future in the Sanctuary – have transferred a further 10 females from Kapiti Island to redress the balance.

“Bellbirds are a notoriously difficult species to transfer” says Sanctuary conservation scientist Raewyn Empson.

“In fact, the Sanctuary is still the only site in New Zealand where transferred bellbirds have established a breeding population. We’re not sure why there has been such a fall in the number of females, but it has put the remaining females under a lot more pressure to breed. In fact we already suspect that one female has died as a result of male-induced stress. We hope that this latest transfer will help take the pressure off the existing females and break what has become a vicious circle.”

Although bellbirds are widespread throughout much of New Zealand, there was no breeding population recorded within the city for many years. Since 2001, over 100 birds have been released into the Sanctuary, mostly from Kapiti Island, establishing New Zealand’s first and only breeding population as a result of transfer.

All images © Karori Sanctuary and show female bellbirds caught on Kapiti Island and released at Karori Sanctuary.

ENDS

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