Fish Futures Freshwater Ecologist Finnbar Lee writes about how there are no quick fixes for many of our threatened species
Life on Earth is undergoing a sixth mass extinction, with species disappearing at an unprecedented rate. Aotearoa is no exception. Since human arrival, over 60 species have vanished, and more than 75 percent of indigenous reptiles, birds, bats, and freshwater fish are either threatened with extinction or at risk of becoming so. Given New Zealanders’ strong support for conservation, this raises an uncomfortable question: Why are we still losing species at such an alarming rate?
The answer is not simple. Invasive species, habitat loss, climate change, disrupted ecosystems, and human interactions all play a role. Conservation efforts in New Zealand have traditionally focused on predator control, which has been critical to slowing species declines. However, the reality is that this alone is not enough. To illustrate the complexity of conservation, let’s look at three species on the front lines of survival: the tara iti (New Zealand fairy tern), migratory galaxiids (whitebait species), and pāteke (brown teal).