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This piece tries to evoke the sadness, the loss, the heartache of that last goodbye.

 

When James Cook first came ashore in New Zealand, he described the bird song as “deafening”. When I hear a single Bellbird or the far off squarks and cries of a single Kaka I am enthralled! In just one hundred and fifty years,with the arrival of Europeans, after 50 million years of life on these islands, nineteen bird species have disappeared ! Prior to that, thirty eight species have become extinct with the arrival of the first humans around 800 years ago.

 

The extent and the speed of this loss is unbearable.

 

‘Goodbye Huia’ is a work of art that comes from the gut wrenching reality that the birds we share this land with are on a precipice. The Huia is saying a last farewell to her companions of the last millions of years. The existing birds saying their goodbyes aware that their existence is precarious and wholly dependent on how humans choose to think and act. 

 

As you read this, seventy one NZ native bird species are, either vulnerable, endangered or critical with another twenty two species in decline.