55 Campbell Island teal will be returned home, sooner than expected. The transfer of 22 birds from Whenua Hou/Codfish Island and 33 from the captive breeding facilities at Isaac Wildlife Trusts Peacock Springs in Christchurch and the department’s national wildlife centre at Mt Bruce, would be the second of three planned releases. This release will see the population on Campbell Island reach about 130 with a world wide population of less than 180. Fifty teal were released last year.

DOC programme manager Pete McClelland said as this was the second transfer of the flightless brown duck it would undoubtedly be another momentous occasion for all parties involved. “When the recovery plan for the teal was written by the department in 1993, with the ultimate aim of returning the species back to Campbell Island it was never thought it would be this soon,” Mr McClelland said.

The teal will be accompanied by a DOC team and Dr John Potter, a vet from Auckland Zoo, who will provide veterinary advice while the birds are being transferred and collect samples from other island birds to check for diseases. The team left for Campbell Island on August 31 from Bluff on board the MV Clan Macleod which has been specially fitted out to hold the teal. The journey will take about 48 hours.

This release will boost the numbers on Campbell Island and help ensure that the population becomes established quickly at which time their threatened species status can be downgraded from its current critically endangered. Once the birds were established on Campbell no further management on them would be required, making it even more important to keep the island pest free, Mr McClelland said. He said the 55 teal sourced from Codfish Island and captive breeding institutions had recently been through a disease screening process to minimise any risk to themselves or to other species on the island.

Two major internationally significant conservation projects had occurred on Campbell Island over the last five years - the world’s largest rat eradication programme and returning the world’s rarest duck to its rightful home after 200 years. The success of the programme had been a team effort from a variety of interested parties. “The department lead the process but we couldn’t have done it without the assistance of the Isaac Family’s Peacock Springs in Christchurch, the Auckland Zoo, Massey University and all the other parties who helped out along the way.”

The Campbell teal recovery programme started back in 1984 when four of the flightless birds were brought back to New Zealand from Dent Island. The aim was to establish a captive population to safeguard the species in case anything happened to the population on Dent Island, Mr McClelland said.

Department of Conservation media release 29.08.05