It Would Take 50 Million Years To Recover New Zealand’s Lost Bird Species

It took only a few hundred years for humans to wipe out 50 million years of evolution on New Zealand

by GrrlScientist for Forbes | @GrrlScientist

NOTE: This piece was a Forbes Editor’s pick.

A flightless kakapo, a critically endangered nocturnal parrot that is native to New Zealand. (Credit: Andrew Digby)

Long before people arrived in New Zealand, it was dominated by multitudes of unique birds. They were absolutely everywhere: big birds, little birds, colorful birds, flightless birds. In the absence of reptilian and mammalian predators, birds evolved to fill every available niche, from giant moas that stood 11 feet tall and weighed as much as 230 kilograms (510 pounds) that were the ecological equivalent of deer and antelopes, to the largest eagle that ever lived, which was New Zealand’s apex predator, functioning similarly to lions and tigers and other big cats.

But after humans arrived 700 years ago, it took us only a few hundred years to drive more than half of New Zealand’s bird species into extinction, and more than 30% of the birds that survived our original onslaughts are threatened with extinction today. Nearly two-thirds could be under threat in the future. Considering these dire circumstances, an international team of scientists wondered how long it might take for New Zealand to recover its full diversity of bird species lost to human actions…