LAURA G. YOUNG
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Inkling 12

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$240.00
$120.00
$120.00
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"Fuzzy"

7 x 5 inches

India ink on Bristol paper.


“Look! Do you see it??”

There, in the tall New Zealand grass, strode a young takahē; one of the rarest birds in the world. Only 260 were left. Nearby a shaggy parent about the size of a chicken herded its fuzzy black progeny into the shade.

My heart skittered with excitement. It was like coming across a dodo — living, breathing, wobbling around. Because just like the dodo, the takahē was utterly flightless and, in 1898, officially declared extinct.

Fast-forward to the mid-20h century and the species was, much to the astonishment of everyone, re-discovered in a remote mountainous area. Their numbers were few and dwindling, though, and by the 1950s it looked as though the archaic-looking birds would go extinct for real. So the remainder were scooped up and brought to several outlying islands, safe from non-native predators.

In 2013 my husband and I were exploring one such sanctuary: Tiri Tiri Matangi, situated offshore from Auckland. It was a veritable paradise, with lush, thick stands of pōhutukawa and puriri trees sheltering all sort of threatened birds.

We only caught a glimpse of the takahē, but I’ll always cherish the memory of that encounter. With continuing encroachment on their habitat, the future of this species remains hopeful yet somewhat unclear — fuzzy, as it were, as that little black chick.

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