page_title: Don Merton
section_title: Professional achievements
hierarchical_section_title: Don Merton / Professional achievements
caption_attribution_description: English: Richard Henry kakapo held by Don Merton, Codfish Island, November 2010.
context_page_description: Donald Vincent Merton QSM was a New Zealand conservationist best known for saving the black robin from extinction. He also discovered the lek breeding system of the kakapo.
  When Don Merton began his work as a conservationist, Kakapo were believed to be extinct, but about 20 years into his career a small population of Kakapo were found on a semi-remote national park in mainland New Zealand. However, it was several months before they finally found a female, and soon after they found the first female they discovered a surprise, well-fed chick a few weeks old. Merton and his crew initially wanted to relocate all of the rediscovered Kakapo they found to off shore Codfish Island, but the New Zealand Department of Conservation only gave permission to relocate 20. Despite the limited relocation, the Kakapo population has steadily recovered. But thanks to technological advances in GENOME Mapping tools like CRISPR, scientists have successfully mapped all of the 147 Kakapos' genomes, and in the near future it may be possible to edit the Genomes of an egg to allow for a higher survival rate among newly hatched chicks.
context_section_description: Together with NZWS colleagues and volunteers, his contributions include:
  pioneered capture and translocation techniques as management tools in the rescue and recovery of endangered birds: In the early 1960s Merton led some of the first successful translocations for conservation purposes involving New Zealand birds – including establishment of a second population of the North Island saddleback, and averting extinction of the South Island saddleback.  Techniques pioneered then are now an everyday part of threatened species management within NZ and beyond;
  pioneered "close order management" (COM) as a means of averting extinction; sustaining in the wild; and/or facilitating recovery of critically endangered species. COM involves intensive management of free-living animals at the individual rather than population level. The concept and techniques were developed and applied with outstanding success during the rescue and recovery of the black robin which Merton led in the 1980s. Refined and adapted over the years, close order management techniques pioneered then are now an integral part of threatened species recovery programmes internationally.
  helped pioneer island biodiversity conservation and restoration techniques. For instance, in the early 1960s, he and Royal Forest & Bird Protection Society of New Zealand volunteers eradicated Norway rats from four small islands in the Noises group, Hauraki Gulf.  This was the first time that rats had been deliberately eradicated from a New Zealand island and opened the way for ecological restoration of these – and many other islands both within New Zealand and beyond;
  led the NZWS field teams that re-discovered the kakapo parrot (in Fiordland) in 1974, and females of this species (on Stewart Island) in 1980.  Females had not been seen since the early 1900s and it was feared they may have been extinct – and  thus the species "functionally extinct";
  discovered and documented the significance of the ritualised, nocturnal booming display of the kakapo – it is, in fact, an unusual form of courtship display known as "lekking";
  instrumental in averting imminent extinction of kakapo (an endemic, monotypic sub-family):  In the early 1980s;  (i) determined that the newly re-discovered kakapo population of southern Stewart Island was in steep decline due to predation by feral cats (~53% mortality per annum of marked adults);  (ii) alerted NZWS, drafted submissions and obtained agreement from the various government and other agencies to relocate (and thus effectively destroy) the last natural population; and,  (iii) as NZWS's Principal Wildlife Officer (Endangered Species), assumed responsibility for planning and leading the capture and relocation of all remaining (61) birds to Little Barrier, Maud and Codfish Islands.  This action proved very successful – the steep decline in kakapo numbers was halted and adult mortality since (~30 years) has averaged a remarkably low ~1.3% per annum;
  led the field project and devised the techniques necessary to capture, hold in captivity, transport and establish a second population of the endangered and highly localised noisy scrubbird of Western Australia. The second population is now by far the larger of the two;
  during the 1980s helped devise and implement a recovery strategy for the critically endangered Mauritius parakeet of Mauritius (Indian Ocean). Only around eight birds including three females were known to exist at that time. There are now more than 300 in the wild;
  also during the 1980s, devised and led the successful eradication of rabbits from Round Island, Mauritius (Indian Ocean) – Round Island was said to support more threatened animal and plant forms than any comparable area on Earth, but survival of these was seriously threatened by the rabbits;
  instrumental in the designation of a national park within the Australian Territory of Christmas Island (Indian Ocean) to facilitate survival of Abbott's booby (largest and most endangered gannet) and a unique raised tropical island ecosystem – while seconded for two years to the Australian National Park
caption: Richard Henry kakapo held by Merton, Codfish Island, November 2010.  Richard Henry spent the past 35 years on four predatory-mammal-free islands. Named after Richard Treacy Henry the pioneer conservationist, and from 1894 to 1910, custodian of Resolution Island, New Zealand he was the last known survivor of his species from mainland New Zealand and was believed to be more than 100 years old.  Richard Henry's legacy: His one female and two male off-spring hatched on Maud Island in 1998 may hold the key to genetic rescue of a species suffering from chronic lack of genetic diversity. Richard Henry kakapo was found dead on Codfish Island on 24 December 2010.[4]
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