Takahē find a new home in Onetahua

On 27 May 2026, eight takahē were released at Onetahua/Farewell Spit in Golden Bay, an important step in rebuilding wild populations of one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most treasured and nationally vulnerable birds. Once thought extinct until their dramatic rediscovery in 1948, fewer than 500 takahē remain today. Watching these large, flightless rails move into the grasslands at the base of the spit was the visible payoff of years of patient groundwork by everyone involved and a reminder of what becomes possible when iwi, community groups, conservation organisations and supporters from around the world work as one.

The release was only possible because the habitat was made safe first. Earlier this year, Pest Free Onetahua completed a four-kilometre predator-proof fence running coast to coast across the base of the spit, protecting 2,000 hectares and 50 kilometres of coastline from the feral pigs, rats, stoats and possums that have ground down this ecology for generations. Built across demanding terrain with helicopter-delivered materials, fine stainless-steel mesh and solar-powered outriggers, the fence is backed by an intensive predator-control network of hundreds of self-resetting traps and bait stations, thermal drone surveillance, specialist hunting teams and even a dedicated possum-detection dog.

This is a genuinely collaborative kaupapa (vision). On the ground, the work has been led by Pest Free Onetahua, a partnership between Te Tauihu Environment Trust and Manawhenua ki Mohua, who represent the three local iwi (Māori tribes), Ngāti Tama, Ngāti Rārua and Te Ātiawa and who brought cultural leadership and the authority of kaitiakitanga (guardianship) from the very outset. The Pest Free Onetahua project is supported by local landowners and the Mohua community and is aligned with the Kotahitanga mō te Taiao (KMTT) Alliance. They are joined by the Department of Conservation, with HealthPost Nature Trust driving habitat restoration, while Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu and Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō also supported the move, all within the wider vision of the Kotahitanga mō te Taiao Alliance, New Zealand's largest conservation collaboration.

The takahē themselves carry a deep whakapapa (genealogy). They descend from the population of Te Puhi-ā-Noa, the Murchison Mountains, the same rugged country where the species was famously rediscovered in 1948. A representative of Ngāi Tahu was present at the release to acknowledge that whakapapa and the origins of the manu (birds), and Manawhenua ki Mohua, Ngāti Tama, Ngāti Rārua and Te Ātiawa, will now be the kaitiaki (guardians) of this taonga (treasure) at Onetahua.

The Nature Conservancy was one of many contributors to this shared effort. Alongside its support for the Kotahitanga mō te Taiao Alliance, TNC was able to help by connecting the project to its global network of partners and supporters. A multi-year commitment from an international supporter, made through TNC, helped sustain Pest Free Onetahua's predator control over several years, laying the foundation for both the fence and the translocation. It's a reminder that care for nature in one part of the world can help nature thrive in another, when partners are willing to work across borders.

What gives this story its resonance is the shared passion behind it. The international supporters who helped make it possible are keen birders with a deep interest in migratory flyways, and Onetahua speaks directly to that interest. The spit is a Ramsar-listed wetland on the East Asian–Australasian Flyway, hosting an estimated 20,000 migratory birds of around 90 species each summer, from bar-tailed godwits and red knots to the only sea-level gannet colony in the world. By helping to protect this landscape, those supporters are helping to future-proof Farewell Spit as a long-term base for the very species that depend on the flyway, a single thread of care connecting coastlines on opposite sides of the Pacific.

From the beginning, the hope was that this work would make a real and lasting difference for this place, and for the birds that travel to it from across the world. The takahē release is the most visible sign yet that it’s working.

And the benefits will keep growing. With predators excluded, Onetahua becomes a candidate home for other threatened species: shore plover, black stilt, fairy tern, southern dotterel, pāteke (brown teal) and more. The takahē are the beginning, not the end.

More than anything, Onetahua is a story of collaboration: of mana whenua, community groups, conservation organisations and supporters near and far, each playing their part for a place they love. As the kaupapa behind the Kotahitanga mō te Taiao Alliance puts it, in conservation we can go faster alone, but further together. The takahē coming home to Onetahua shows just how far “together” can reach.