Seven Black Robins

This is an incredible conservation success story filled with adventure and high drama.

It is one of three documentaries made by TVNZ's Natural History Unit (later NHNZ) that follows the efforts of the NZ Wildlife Service team (led by Don Merton) to save the world's (then) rarest bird, the Chatham Islands' black robin.

By 1976 there were only seven birds left. In a bid to save the species, the surviving birds were taken from one island to another more hospitable island in a desperate rescue mission.

Through habitat destruction and predation, the once widespread black robin had become restricted to a bleak patch of stunted forest on top of Little Mangere Island. Unless Merton's crew could transfer the last birds from their home, where bush was being strangled by vines and tree roots eroded by Muttonbird nest holes, the black robin, it seemed, was doomed.

Seven Black Robins follows the 1976-7 rescue mission to capture, transfer and release the robins on nearby Mangere Island where 120,000 trees had been planted to provide better shelter.

The documentary backgrounds the plight and picks up the story with the patient capture of the robins using mist nets, bird calls and tasty lures. Too much stress could kill the robin, so the transfer operation is difficult and tentative. The unique design of the transporters is discussed and the perilous transfer of birds - one by one - abseiling down steep windswept 600 foot high cliffs to handover to an inflatable which has to deliver its load to Mangere in swells and breaking surf, is conveyed without drumming home the danger; the drama is self-evident.

Although the black robin's survival was far from secure this was a vital first step in the story of the robin's rescue. This group of seven robins features the famous matriarch of the species, ‘Old Blue'. She's just ‘Blue' here (a six year old when this doco was shot). With her partner Yellow they would become the ‘Adam and Eve' of the black robin: the ancestors of every black robin living today.

Blue's future involved innovative cross-species foster parenting (black robin eggs were removed from Blue's nest and placed in tomtit's nests to boost her sex drive) that had never been tried before.

Seven Black Robins along with Black Robin, and The Robin's Return captured the attention of international wildlife film-makers and were the founding films upon which the formation of NHNZ was based.

NHNZ is now a world leading production company, delivering factual television (mainly focused on the natural world) to networks that include National Geographic, Discovery Channel to Animal Planet. Along with its Dunedin base NHNZ has offices in Beijing and Washington DC and amongst many awards has collected Emmys and the prestigious Wildscreen Panda.

Producer on Seven Black Robins, Michael Stedman, would go on to become long-time managing director of NHNZ and broker its sale to Fox in 1997. He invited writer and presenter Peter Hayden to Dunedin to work on the black robin story. Hayden would become a well known actor (Footrot Flats, Illustrious Energy) and NHNZ stalwart. The researcher was bird photographer and naturalist Rod Morris. Editor Melanie Read would later direct features Trial Run and Send a Gorilla.

As Hayden says, "this was a time when New Zealanders knew little about the natural history of their country. The animals I knew were enclosed in fences. A wellspring of curiosity was there to be tapped."

And tap it they did. The black robin documentaries were screened as part of the iconic wildlife series Wild South, which was responsible for invigorating a whole generation of New Zealanders with a passion for our birds and bush.

Merton acknowledges that, "through media coverage, and in particular TVNZ Natural History Unit's three Wild South documentaries [...] this project [to save the black robin] has generated unprecedented public interest both within New Zealand and beyond. This seems to have been a key factor in bringing about the massive upsurge in public and political awareness and support for biological conservation apparent within New Zealand during the last decade [1980s].

The gentle pace, sparse but efficient narration, and unobtrusive observational footage of a wee inbred black bird might seem quaint in a world where ‘Tiger vs. Shark' and deadliest snakes dominate wildlife programming. But one feels genuine admiration for these terse, focused men. They tackle impressive physical challenges, not for immunity or a purse, but out of a passion to help out a special taonga.

When, unsure of whether the precious cargo has survived the rigours of the transfer, the transport box is opened and a quick black spot flits out and warbles from high in a tree, you feel the same sense of triumph that the wildlife ranger does.

As Hayden says: "the birds became characters. I think that was our first breakthrough story, using the footage to tell some good science, but also to take you into the personalities of the animals involved."

A new generation of New Zealand viewers may demand different forms of storytelling and new means of being engaged, but it is a real tragedy for our unique nga manu that the significant popular appeal of the Wild South series has not been recognised or replicated in the more than 20 years since.