- Conservation status
- Extinct
The South Island snipe is described as "a shorebird gone bush" by New Zealand Birds Online. Its nocturnal aerial display, featuring a roar created by vibrating tailfeathers, has been associated with the mythological hakawai. Like the bush wren, the last refuge of the South Island snipe was Big South Cape Island. When rats arrived in 1964, the Wildlife Service attempted to catch snipe for translocation. Two males were captured, but died in captivity.
Campaign Manager
Team snipe
Back from the dead baby! Since the 1960's the South Island snipe has been creeping around graveyards, watching.. waiting...commiserating…for the right time to rise again and take over the world.... I mean Bird of the Century.
Spoooky right, but not as spoooky as the loss of birds NZ has seen over the last century. Gives me nightmares!
Team Snipe hope to bring awareness to the many plights that NZ snipe species, both extinct, and still struggling, have faced. Vote snipe, we may have lost the South Island snipe, but there are still others that need a helping hand! #snipeboty
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