LAST OF THE LAUGHING OWLS

PAMELA LOVIS

The whēkau, or laughing owl (Sceloglaux albifacies), is one of two owl species endemic to New Zealand, the other being the ruru, or morepork. The whēkau was rare in 1892 when this unique photograph of a live bird was taken. It was one of a pair kept by ornithologist and bird collector Walter Buller (1838–1906) in an aviary at his Wellington home. Buller had a lifelong interest in New Zealand birds, making detailed observations first published in 1873 in his landmark A History of the Birds of New Zealand. The book was later published in enlarged format in 1888, and its coloured lithographs by J. G. Keulemans have become iconic in themselves.

Buller built his own large collection of specimens, as well as supplying them to overseas collectors. He believed it inevitable that native birds would become extinct, replaced by the new European arrivals, and that it was therefore important to preserve them in perpetuity.

The photographer was Henry Wright (1844–1936), a Wellington businessman who had an interest in photography and conservation. Buller arranged for Wright to take the photograph before he sent the owls overseas in 1893 to the British collector Lord Walter Rothschild. Buller remarked that it was highly probable that this live pair ‘shall be the last we ever get’.

The rapid decline of New Zealand birds, caused by loss of habitat along with competition from, and predation by, introduced species, was by then well known. Government officials and scientists such as Buller talked about the need for protection and for establishing reserves on offshore islands, such as Te Hauturu o Toi Little Barrier Island, to which rare birds could be transferred. Wright took up a post as a temporary ranger on Te Hauturu for several months in December 1892 and later campaigned for bird conservation.

Buller advocated in public for conservation efforts, but at the same time continued to collect rare birds such as whēkau and huia to supply to overseas collectors. His pair of whēkau could have been taken to an island reserve in an effort to preserve the species, but instead Buller chose to send them to Britain.

Within a few decades it was too late, and the opportunity to save the species was lost. The last confirmed record of a whēkau was in 1914, and by 1940 the species had joined New Zealand’s dismal roll call of extinction. With its living presence captured forever in one black-and-white photograph, the whēkau serves as a cautionary tale.

DESCRIPTION Male whēkau, laughing owl (Sceloglaux albifacies), Wellington, 1892

MAKER / ARTIST Henry Wright (1844–1936)

REFERENCE PAColl-5032: 1/1-020529-G The last recorded sighting of the whēkau, one of two species of owl endemic to Aotearoa New Zealand, was in 1914. It was declared extinct in 1940.