Black Robin or Chatham Island Robin

(Petroica traversi)

My story of the black robin began when I met Don Merton in the early 1990s. He is quiet and soft-spoken and, like so many people who have accomplished extraordinary things, he is modest. Don had been invited to a reception held to welcome me to New Zealand, and we were not able to talk long. But he gave me a glimpse of the fascinating work he did, and his passion for saving endangered birds. The rest I have learned from subsequent chats on the telephone and e-mail correspondence. And of course, from reading about his work.

His love affair with wildlife began in the 1940s when he was a small child, growing up on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island. “From the age of about four years,” Don told me, “I was nutty about wildlife and spent much time watching birds, lizards, and insects—especially looking for birds’ nests.” When he was five years old, his grandmother came to stay and brought with her a canary. “That little yellow bird sang its way through the 1940s and … ignited my passion for birds,” Don said. One day he and his brothers “gave my grandmother’s canary a (European) goldfinch chick to foster. It adopted the chick as its own and raised it.” Thirty-five years later, his recollection of this incident eventually saved the black robin species from imminent extinction. (I shall tell more about that later.)

He was twelve years old when he made the decision to devote his life to trying to save birds that were in danger of extinction. And he certainly followed his dream, beginning his career in 1960 (the same year that I arrived at Gombe National Park in Tanzania) and playing a key role in the rescue and recovery of some of his country’s—and the world’s—most endangered birds. It all began in 1961 when he spent a month on Big South Cape Island—now known by its indigenous name Taukihepa (off the southwest coast of New Zealand’s Stewart Island)—which still retained its full quota of indigenous wildlife. Indeed, along with two other tiny adjacent islands, it was the final refuge for several animals formerly abundant and widespread on the mainland, including the South Island saddleback.

Don Merton with one of his beloved black robins. A childhood memory of his grandmother’s canary helped Don figure out a way to save this endearing bird from imminent extinction. (Rob Chappel)

Rats and Other Invasive Animals

That trip, along with subsequent field trips to remote areas, led Don to wonder why it was that on mainland New Zealand, despite hundreds of thousands of acres of seemingly intact forest and other habitats, native wildlife was in such a predicament. Why had massive extinctions and reductions in the range of so many species occurred? Don and some colleagues were convinced that the impact of predatory mammals introduced by European settlers, on purpose (such as cats, ferrets, and stoats) or accidentally (rats and mice), was the primary reason. But some leading biologists (educated in Europe or North America) argued strongly that predation was natural, and it was habitat loss that was primarily affecting wildlife in New Zealand.

Gone Forever

Then something happened that, in Don’s words, “not only clinched the argument, but changed forever the way we were to perceive, protect, and manage our islands and their native plants and animals.” In March 1964, three years after Don visited Taukihepa, he heard that ship rats had reached the island and increased to plague proportions, causing the wildlife to suffer massive damage. Don and his colleagues, anticipating “a biological disaster,” wanted to do something about it, but some of the most respected biologists refused to believe that the rats posed a significant threat to wildlife, and vigorously opposed any suggestion to intervene. They argued that any intervention would “change the ecology in a way that we cannot predict: We should intervene only after research has shown there is in fact a problem.”

Eventually, after five months of arguing, and thanks to the support of some senior Wildlife Service staff, Don and his colleagues were given permission to set off on a rescue mission. “We were successful in saving the saddleback through transferring some of the remnants to two small neighboring pest-free islands,” reported Don. But they arrived too late to save the bush wren, the Stewart Island bush snipe, and the greater short-tailed bat, along with an unknown number of invertebrate species. They were gone. Forever. However, the saddleback now numbers in the low thousands and flourishes on more than a dozen islands. It was the first bird species to be rescued from imminent extinction and restored to viability in the wild through direct human intervention.

“The tragedy of Taukihepa was a valuable and timely lesson for this, and other aspiring conservation workers,” Don wrote to me, “and served to convince even the most skeptical that, unaided, rats are capable of inducing ecological collapse and extinction within native island faunas.” Indeed, that disaster led to the development of island quarantine protocols and methods of predator eradication and control that have made it possible to maintain biologically important islands free of pests.

Over the years, Don has helped to save many birds from extinction. One drama still ongoing, in which Don has played a major role for many years, is the fight to save the kakapo, the only flightless parrot in the world. It is absolutely fascinating and is described in full on our Web site. Don also played a key role in the rescue and recovery of the Australian noisy scrub-bird, the Seychelles magpie robin, and other animals endemic to the Seychelles Islands of the Indian Ocean.

An Incredible Story

Of all Don’s accomplishments, the saving of the black robin is the one I love best. “Black robins,” said Don, “are delightful, friendly little birds that have an affinity with people—often approaching to within a meter, even perching briefly on one’s foot or head! They quickly capture the heart of even the most unenthusiastic bird observer! I just loved them and, as well as feeling very privileged, felt a massive responsibility to current and future generations around the world, to save this fantastic little life-form from the brink of extinction.”

What a tough job that turned out to be. Since the 1880s, black robins were confined to Little Mangere Island, a tiny rock stack in midocean off the Chatham Islands, about five hundred miles east of New Zealand. Here, in their last refuge, they lived in just twelve acres of woody vegetation. It was thought that they were safe, at least in the short term, until in 1972 a team of biologists captured and color-banded every individual—and found that there were only eighteen in all. In subsequent years numbers continued to decline, and Don advocated immediate intervention. “But I was overruled,” he told me. Some thought the downward trend was part of a cycle, and that numbers would soon recover unaided. Only in 1976, “when there were just nine black robins left in the world, was there general agreement that action should be taken.”

Don told me that he and most of his colleagues “felt very strongly about what should be done, and often there was frustration at not being permitted to get on with it.” When, finally, they got the go-ahead to capture and relocate the remaining robins, they reached the island in September 1976 to find just seven birds left—and only two of them were female. And only one of the females would prove to be productive. This female, marked with a blue leg band, would become famous as Old Blue. The tiny group of survivors was moved from Little Mangere Island, where their scrub forest environment was dying and no longer able to support them, to nearby Mangere Island. This was but the first step in a dramatic and ultimately successful attempt to rescue the species.

Old Blue—The Matriarch Who Saved Her Species

Black robins normally mate for life. Old Blue and her mate nested during the next breeding season, but their eggs were infertile. Amazingly, Old Blue then abandoned her longtime partner and in his place selected a younger male soon to be known as Old Yellow (because of his yellow leg band). Again Old Blue laid eggs—and now this little family became part of Don’s innovative cross-fostering program.

It was that childhood memory of the canary fostering the goldfinch that gave Don an idea for how he might be able to boost the normally low productivity of the species. In normal circumstances, a black robin pair rears no more than one brood of two chicks per year, so the species lacks the ability to recover quickly from adversity. But if a nest was destroyed, or eggs taken, the black robins would build a new nest and produce another clutch. So Don destroyed the nest, removed both of Old Blue’s eggs, and placed them in tomtit nests, where they were successfully fostered.

Old Blue and Old Yellow then made a second nest, and she laid a second clutch. Again the eggs were taken. Meanwhile, the chicks from her first tomtit-hatched clutch were returned to Old Blue so they would learn behavior appropriate to their species. Then the second clutch hatched. Don told me that when he returned them to join the first lot, Old Blue looked up at him with a resigned expression, as if to say “Goodness, what next?” Whereupon he reassured her, “We shall help you feed them, love, don’t worry.” I have always cherished the mental picture of Don and his team rushing around searching for suitable food for the artificially extended family of black robin chicks they had helped to create.

The same procedure was repeated for the next few seasons, thus giving the single family group of black robins a kick start. “Cross-fostering proved highly effective,” Don said, “but at the start the technique was untested and thus of high risk… . If we failed, we would be blamed for exterminating the species!”

Desperately Don and his team worked to save these birds. “Old Blue, Old Yellow, and their many chicks became my extended family,” said Don. “I thought about them constantly. While in the field—often for months at a stretch—we spoke about little else.” Each spring, when Don visited Mangere Island, he couldn’t wait to find out which birds had survived the winter. “Each new nest, egg laid, or chick hatched was cause for celebration, and any deaths were almost the equivalent of a loss within the family!” He never enjoyed the times when, to ensure their long-term survival, he had to take their eggs and destroy their nests.

Old Blue finally passed away in 1984. She lived to be thirteen years old, more than twice the life span of most robins—despite the abnormal number of eggs and chicks she had been manipulated into producing. And because her story had touched the hearts of many New Zealanders, a plaque was set up in her memory at the Chatham Island airport, and the Right Honorable Peter Tapsell, minister for internal affairs, announced the death of “Old Blue—matriarch & savior of the Black Robin species.” National and international media broadcast the story of the world’s rarest and most endangered bird who had in her “geriatric years” brought her species back from the brink.

A Bright Future

By the late 1980s, numbers of black robins had increased beyond the one hundred mark. Groups of black robins were then established on an additional island. After this, there was no further need for intensive, hands-on management of the birds. Don told me there are now approximately two hundred black robins on two islands. All are descended from just one pair—Old Blue and her mate Old Yellow—thus in their genetic profiles all are as identical as identical twins.

“Thankfully,” said Don, “there are no apparent genetic problems.” However, habitats on the two islands are at saturation point, which means that the species cannot increase in number or expand in range. Also, during and after each breeding season, there is considerable wastage—young birds die because they have nowhere to live. Don has long advocated reestablishment of a population on Little Mangere Island—the very place whence he removed the last members of the species at the start of the rescue. Since then Little Mangere’s woody vegetation has recovered, and being free of predatory mammals the island presents—in the short term at least—the only available option for black robins in the Chatham Islands. Don strongly supports this proposal. “And needless to say,” he told me, “I would love to be involved!”

Christmas Island Park Manager Max Orchard and his wife, Beverly, have devoted the past sixteen years (and even handed over their yard and carport) to nurturing injured or orphaned Abbott’s boobies. Here Max is feeding fish to a recovering juvenile. (Corey Piper)