THE huia was a spectacular bird, prized by Maori, and the wearing of its skin or feathers was reserved for people of high status.
It became extinct early last century, being rare even before the arrival of Europeans, but its extinction was accelerated by collectors for museums throughout the world wanting specimens - before they went extinct. What an irony.
These days we are driving species to extinction through neglect and ignorance, made worse through greed for resources, both mineral and natural.
A recent example is the fishing industries fiddling their quota by throwing huge quantities of fish overboard to keep within their quota so they could catch more of the desirable fish. Their fishing methods are not designed to be very selective, the nets not really giving small or unwanted species of fish a chance to escape, even if the nets have large enough escape holes large numbers still get trapped and crushed in the end of the net.
The industry doesn't have any incentive to improve its methods to reduce undesired catch. Yet Country Calendar (May 14) showed a Hawke's Bay fisherman who had worked on large trawlers and, having seen the wastage, went out on his own and developed a net with a metal cage in the end of his net with holes that allow undersized fish to escape uninjured and grow. This is something the Government should put research and investment into, not only would it preserve our fisheries but increase its value because people the world over are wanting to buy from properly managed and sustainable fisheries. Its value is not necessarily immediate, but in the long term, as other fisheries decline or disappear like the North Atlantic cod fisheries, their value will increase. If the rest of the world also took up and developed this way of fishing and the immediate value of our fish didn't rise, that would be even better because the planet would be a better place.
