1980 – 2012: 32 years of re-introduction efforts of the hihi (stitchbird) in New Zealand

Summary

The hihi or stitchbird (Notiomystis cincta), a Vulnerable New Zealand passerine confined by 1890 to a single remnant population of 600 to 6,000 birds on offshore Little Barrier Island, has been the focus of a national reintroduction program coordinated by New Zealand's Department of Conservation since 1980. Over 32 years, 21 translocations moved birds to eight different sites, drawing founders first from a captive breeding population and later increasingly by harvesting from Little Barrier and other established wild populations, with non-native predators controlled or eradicated at release sites beforehand. A national Hihi Recovery Group, including government staff, Maori iwi, community groups and researchers, guided site selection, genetic management and disease screening, while colour-ringing and re-sighting protocols, refined from the early 1990s, tracked survival and breeding across populations. Results have been mixed: some reintroduced populations have grown under intensive supportive management, including sugar-water feeding, artificial nest boxes and mite and predator control, while others, such as Mokoia Island, have failed to persist due to disease or dispersal outside protected areas. The captive breeding program itself suffered poor survival, aggression-limited housing capacity and high costs, and has now been discontinued in favor of direct wild-to-wild translocations, found to be more successful and cost effective. The project rates itself Successful overall, citing population growth at multiple managed sites, even as it acknowledges that all reintroduced hihi populations still depend on ongoing supportive management to persist.