At the time Pārekareka or spotted shags, Phalacrocorax punctatus, along with most other cormorants (commonly known as shags) in New Zealand, were considered uncharismatic marine ‘wildfowl’. Wildfowl were competitors for fish and so were hunted widely.
Today, however, there is a far greater appreciation for shags as well as for New Zealand’s position as the ‘centre of the shag world’. New Zealand has at least 13 of the world’s 40 shag and cormorant species breeding here. With many of these species under threat, analyses of museum specimens, such as the birds Griffin collected and preserved, have provided researchers with critical insights and understanding of the birds.
In the case of Hauraki Gulf spotted shags, the population has undergone a catastrophic decline in the 20th Century. They have gone from being prevalent on both Auckland’s west and east coasts, to today having only one major colony in the Firth of Thames with just 300 breeding pairs.
Concern over the ongoing decline of Auckland’s spotted shags has, until recently, been balanced against the knowledge that spotted shags have a New Zealand wide distribution with large populations in the South Island, and therefore little concern for the decline of the Auckland colonies.
Surely immigration from these large southern populations should safeguard the Hauraki Gulf population from going extinct, right?
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Image caption: A photograph of the Spotted Shag Diorama created by Louis Griffin in Auckland Museum's Princes Street Building. The diorama was dismantled and no longer exists, however some of the specimens remain in our collection.