From 105 to 160: New Zealand's rarest dotterel just posted its biggest comeback year in three decades

The southern dotterel — pukunui in Māori — had been sliding toward extinction on Stewart Island (Rakiura): from 176 birds in 2020 to just 105 in early 2025, with feral cats killing up to 50 adults a year, often males sitting on eggs through the night. In winter 2025, New Zealand's Department of Conservation and the non-profit Zero Invasive Predators ran a targeted aerial campaign against the cats across the mountain-top breeding areas. The latest annual count across beaches in Murihiku and Southland found 91 of 97 known adults had survived, joined by 56 newly banded young birds — a population back up to an estimated 160, a rise of about 52 per cent and the largest yearly increase since focused conservation began more than 32 years ago. 'After years of small gains, and more commonly, devastating losses, this is the result we needed to help save pukunui from extinction,' said DOC Rakiura Operations Manager Jennifer Ross. The recovery project's goal: at least 300 birds by 2035.

SDG 15 · Life on land — Mechanism: institutional program