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ecommendation occurred through his paper entitled “Description of Little Barrier or Hauturu
Island, the Birds which Inhabit it, and the Locality as a Protection to them”, which was read to the
Auckland Institute on 14 November by Professor Algernon Phillips Withiel Thomas 80 due to his
being away on an expedition. 81 As a result of the island’s natural advantages, with the only
drawback being the wild pigs and cats, which, however, could be rectified by “a good marksman
with well-trained dogs”, he saw Little Barrier as having a bright future as a sanctuary for New
Zealand’s native wildlife:
If the members of this Institute are in favour of obtaining Hauturu Island for preserving and
protecting the Native birds, from my knowledge, and after many years studying the habits of New
Zealand birds, I could not recommend a more favourable place. It would be of great benefit to
science and agriculture to have such a means of preventing the extinction of these remarkable
birds, which, as they multiplied, could easily be transferred to the mainland for the purpose of
checking the insect pests; and if my aid in the project is of any use, I will be most happy to
procure (gratis) live specimens of both sexes of Apteryx (kiwi) and Stringops (kakapo), if the
Committee will provide me with cages and arrange for the transport, before or when I am again on
the West Coast, about December next. 82
King, to his credit, comments that the move to purchase Little Barrier in 1894 from the local
Maori as a bird sanctuary “could have been the end result of Reischek’s earlier submissions”:
When he passed through Wellington in December 1886 to join the Stella for his second Fiordland
expedition he discussed with Buller and [James] Hector 83 the idea of making Little Barrier or
Taranga Island into a reserve, 84 with himself as curator. At the same time he wrote to Cheeseman
[on 15 December] and asked him to put such a proposal before the council of the Auckland
Institute so that it could be forwarded to Government with the backing of the relevant professional
body. 85
In his letter he outlines his proposal for Little Barrier to become a reserve to protect native birds
from poaching and pests on the condition that permission would be granted to the curator for
collecting museum specimens in a “controlled and conserving manner”. 86 With growing support
of the North Island in a paper in 1878, albeit without specifying Little Barrier, although he first mooted the idea in
1872 (Marr et al., Crown Laws, 274; Galbreath, Walter Buller, 164; Westerskov, “Reischek’s 1890 Paper”, 277).
80 See Ross Galbreath, “Thomas, Algernon Phillips Withiel 1857 – 1937: University professor, biologist,
educationalist”, in: DNZB 2, 536f.
81 The date for the meeting of the Auckland Institute is incorrectly recorded as 16 December 1886 in a later
contribution (Andreas Reischek, “Ein Schongebiet für Neuseelands Vögel”, in: MOVW 17:2 (1893): 25).
82 Andreas Reischek, “Description of Little Barrier or Hauturu Island, the Birds which Inhabit it, and the Locality as a
Protection to them”, in: TPNZI 19 (1886): 184.
83 See R. K. Dell, “Hector, James 1834 – 1907: Geologist, explorer, administrator”, in: DNZB 1, 183f.
84 Reischek mentions on several occasions Taranga (or Hen) Island as an option in the meantime until Little Barrier
has been made predator-free (Reischek, “Letter to Cheeseman, 13 Jan 1887”, 162).
85 King, Collector, 121.
86 King refers to this as an “attempt to secure employment and income” (ibid., 121). However, it is already clear that
Reischek was willing to collect live specimens for free even if he succeeded in nothing more. In his proposal he
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