A photo from open sources
The Stephen Shrubby Wren, or traverse, represented a kind of flightless night birds, one of a kind traverse.
It is believed that initially these 10-centimeter birds lived throughout New Zealand, however by the end of the 19th century their the population survived only on the island of Stevens in the Tasman Sea. What makes these creatures unique is that they were discovered and completely exterminated, roughly speaking, by a single a cat.
A photo from open sources
The Stevens Lighthouse was built in 1892, however the availability here a previously unknown bird species was discovered only after two years when the caretaker David Lyall settled here. Despite that this man was an enthusiastic nature lover and a beginner an ornithologist, for some reason he did not foresee what to take with him a pregnant cat was a very bad idea. Formerly on the island there were no mammalian predators, and traverses lived practically without natural enemies.
Caught in a bird-isolated land area an area of one and a half square kilometers, a purr named Tibbles began to wreak havoc among the feathered. Soon she began to bring his prey to the owner, and Lyall was surprised to find small birds with olive-brown plumage, placed in the palm of your hand. The lighthouse keeper determined that the wings of unfamiliar birds were too small and round for these creatures to fly.
After some time, David realized that the rarest birds were predominantly nocturnal and nimbly run around the earth like the mouse. The New Zealander never managed to catch the wren, however fleeing from clawed paws and sharp teeth Tibbles birds don’t could.
Examining the bodies brought by the cat, Lyall dried a couple of dozen of them in the sun, thereby preserving the remains. He started to write scientists, and soon they began to talk about his find in scientific journals. Several institutes even paid decent money to David for dried birds.
A photo from open sources
Alas, when our hero realized that his favorite represents immediate danger to the traverse population, Tibbles already long ago gave birth, and her children also actively exterminated defenseless birds. In February 1895, a man wrote to one of prominent New Zealand ornithologists that cats managed to run wild and even don’t think to stop. During the time that the letter reached the addressee, the lighthouse keeper and his colleagues saw only two alive wrens, after which the traverses no longer came across anyone on eyes.
A photo from open sources
Stephen Shrub Wren was officially recognized extinct before the beginning of the 20th century. Only 15 samples survived, received by David Lyall and exhibited today in 9 museums various countries of the world. They are a sad reminder that that the introduction into the ecosystem of a single invasive predator can be disastrous for local species.
As the naturalist James Hector once wrote, in 1898 Stevens Island was teeming with wild cats, and the caretaker of time, Robert Cathcart shot them in more than a hundred in 1899 alone pieces. With the advent of the lighthouse on the island and the caretakers who arranged here farms, once a piece of land covered with dense forest soon turned into a wasteland overgrown with a rare shrub …
Bird Island Cat Time
