The continued hunting of wood pigeons makes me feel nothing but despair. All over Northland there are many people like myself giving up their days, weeks and years to lug traps deep into the bush and set them, in an effort to protect kukupa. Scraping possums, stoatsand rat after maggoty rat out of traps is no fun. But we do it because in Northland birds like native wood pigeons are heading towards local extinction.
In forests with no pest control, which is the vast majority of Northland's forests, almost all wood pigeons will lose their young to either possums or rats. When these old birds die there are none to replace them. But it gets even worse than that. When pigeon numbers get very low they interbreed, their eggs become infertile and will not hatch.
For anyone taking pigeons, it's like a spit in the face to our hard work. It's demotivating. Is our work simply a waste of time? We need leaders to step up on this issue, not be a part of the problem.
The numbers of these birds have got so low in Northland it's gone beyond a customary issue to a moral one. People must put aside their selfish behaviour and protect this taonga for the next generations.
