Digitalt nytrykk av original fra 1980 (print on demand)
Forlagets egen omtale:
Dr
Janet Kear, Assistant Director of the Wildfowl Trust and Curator of its Martin
Mere Reserve, and Professor Andrew Berger of the University of Hawaii, have
written a timely and absorbing account of the recent history of the Hawaiian
Goose, or Nene, its descent to near extinction, its eleventh hour rescue and
current restoration to the wild.
The species declined from an estimated population of 25,000 in Hawaii in the
18th century to less than fifty birds in the 1940s. Today, thanks largely to the
extended breeding programmes at Slimbridge and Pohakuloa, there are probably
more than 2000 Hawaiian Geese in the world.
The achievement is justly applauded and well-known, but whether this impressive
experiment in conservation has been truly successful will not be clear until it
becomes evident that the released birds can maintain a breeding population in
the wild. As the authors explain, the outcome is far from predictable.
The causes which led to the species’ decline and the hazards and difficulties
faced by the reintroduced population are discussed at length, but the core of
the book is the propagation programmes at Slimbridge and Pohakuloa, and the
problems and successes they brought during many years of patient work.
For the conservationist and aviculturalist the accounts of captive breeding
under headings such as infertility, diet, longevity, mortality and the effects
of foster mothers, geographical latitude and genetic strain, will be essential
reading.
Appropriately, Sir Peter Scott, whose imterest and involvement in the rescue of
the Hawaiian Goose was of prime importance, is one of the artists whose drawings
supplement the text. There is also a colour frontispiece and 24 monochrome
plates.
