Overview
Takahe collected in Thompson Sound, Fiordland in 1851. After residing in the British Museum for 100 years, this specimen was gifted to the Dominion Museum (now Te Papa) in 1953. This was in response tothe remarkable rediscovery of takahe west of Lake Te Anau in 1948. The birds had not been seen since 1898 and were considered to be extinct before their rediscovery by Dr Geoffrey Orbell. Takahe remain critically endangered, but ongoing work by the Department of Conservation, and previously the New Zealand Wildlife Service, has saved them from extinction.