The spokesman added, "It is against the law to kill protected native birds without authority. DoC compliance staff are investigating the takahe deaths to see if there have been any breaches under the Wildlife Act.
"A number of forensic tests have been carried out as part of the investigation.
"The investigators are waiting for the results of these tests and this is expected to take several more weeks."
The "pukeko culling party" from the Deerstalkers Association, we are told, has been co-operative.
DoC is also carrying out an operational review of the cull and has halted all culling operations in areas with populations of threatened native wildlife.
At the time I expressed my incredulity that amateur deerstalkers with shotguns, indeed anyone with shotguns, were allowed anywhere near a small flock of birds classified as "critically endangered".
The birds on Motutapu had been entrusted to DoC's safe-keeping, refugees from the only remaining wild population in Fiordland National Park. There are only 300 or so takahe left in the world.
The spending of money - which DoC is tragically short of - on forensic tests conjures up visions of television crime dramas and white-coated scientists trying to link shotgun pellets from dead takahe back to someone's gun.
My firearm consultants roll their eyes at that one.
The initial reports had Bill O'Leary, president of the Deerstalkers' Association, declaring that the people involved in the group are "very, very upset themselves".
Whether they knew they had shot the takahe is not clear. They certainly didn't confess to it at the time. Their corpses were only discovered by DoC a week later when the "mortality signals" from their transmitters were picked up.
Trying to identify which of the deerstalkers fired the fatal shots and dragging them off for a show trial is hardly the point.
DoC was entrusted with the safety of the critically endangered birds, and it was DoC who invited the shooters into the sanctuary.
DoC staff gave the deerstalkers a half-day briefing on the difference between the two species, showing them a live takahe and telling them to only shoot pukeko on the wing because takahe can't fly.
DoC's weak excuse afterwards was that no takahe had died in similar culls in 2012 and 2013.
Still, cash-strapped DoC's reliance on volunteers is a symptom of a much bigger problem. That's our refusal to face up to the perilous decline of the natural estate.
This month Forest and Bird conservationist Dean Baigent-Mercer was pleading for emergency funding to save Northland's forests and birdlife from a huge invasion of possums.
This week comes a report that last summer's 15-year beech "masting", which triggered DoC's $21 million 1080 drop, could recur this summer. Without another poison drop, another killer pest infestation across South Island forests seems inevitable.
Ancient forests are dying. Kiwi are in rapid decline throughout the mainland. Only about 6 per cent of our recorded threatened species are being actively managed. And not always very well.
