Story: Coastal shoreline

Shore plover (3rd of 3)

Shore plover

One of the rarest shore birds in the world, the shore plover once bred around the coast of mainland New Zealand. By the late 1880s it was confined to the Chatham Islands, having been hunted to extinction on the mainland by cats and rats. Since the 1990s there have been a number of attempts to reintroduce the bird to small islands around the North Island. Some adult birds flew to the mainland and disappeared, and some were attacked by moreporks (native owls), but a couple of adults managed to raise chicks on an island off the East Coast.

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Department of Conservation
Reference: 10050888
Photograph by Helen Gummer

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How to cite this page:

Maggy Wassilieff, 'Coastal shoreline - Shore birds', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/photograph/4846/shore-plover (accessed 29 March 2024)

Story by Maggy Wassilieff, published 12 Jun 2006