11 Jun 2021

Northern muttonbird slowly returning to onshore nesting sites

From First Up, 5:45 am on 11 June 2021

A good news story now for a bird that was once driven off New Zealand's mainland by introduced pest species. The grey-faced petrel or Northern Muttonbird has returned to the Waitakere Ranges thanks to years of pest control work by volunteers and conservationists. James Russell is a conservation biologist from the University of Auckland, who's been working with these quirky birds for 15 years. Nathan Rarere asked him how prevalent these birds were in the North Island before being driven off.