KEY POINTS:
The Department of Conservation has given two hawks a stay of execution, after an outcry over plans to shoot them so it can introduce three endangered kokako to the Hauraki Gulf island where the birds live.
Rolien Elliot, DoC's Warkworth area manager, said conservationists would try to catch the harrier hawks and move them from Tiritiri Matangi.
The birds need to be removed to boost the chances of a breeding programme for the kokako - the last remaining offspring of the male Taranaki kokako gene.
On Friday two DoC staff told the Herald the "very difficult conservation decision" had been taken to shoot the hawks.
But Ms Elliot said yesterday that the plan was always to try to catch them live. "The shooting is a backstop."
DoC staff were on the island with live traps this week, said Ms Elliot, ahead of the release of the kokako on Saturday.
But it could be a temporary reprieve for the harrier hawks - one of New Zealand's three birds of prey. Ms Elliot said if the birds could not be caught, or if they were caught but returned to the island on their release, shooting remained an option.
And she said previous attempts to catch hawks live had failed.
Culling the hawks has been approved by the Supporters of Tiritiri Matangi, but some in the group are unhappy about the decision.
The island's ranger, who works for DoC, has also refused to carry out the shooting. A permit has been issued to volunteers from Fish & Game NZ. John Dyer, wildlife officer for the Auckland Waikato Fish & Game Council, said the volunteers were working on their own time and his organisation had nothing to do with the planned shooting.
But he described the decision as a "no brainer" to protect the kokako.
"Sentimentality is a fine thing, but should it be the overriding concern when you're in charge of some of the world's rarest birds? Hawks are a partially protected species - the very reason for the 'partial' prefix being to allow them to be culled at release sites."
Mr Dyer said hawks had previously killed kokako on Tiritiri Matangi and harrier hawks were "a contender for New Zealand's least endangered bird".
The three kokako have been raised in captivity so are particularly naive and vulnerable to predators.
Bob Tait, from Friends of the Earth, urged DoC to make every effort to catch the birds live. "They are very easy to trap and there's simply no need to kill them."
