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Zealanders, as well as several other less positive qualities, including their excessive religiousness
on Sundays, which compared and contrasted with the paradisical ideals perceived by Hochstetter
and Haast, his main image of New Zealand centred around its unique native wildlife, which he
saw as being greatly under threat from foreign invaders, such as man and his introduced pests.
Maori culture, if not the Maori race itself, was also seen as facing the threat of extinction, but it
was the domain of nature that he felt obliged to expend efforts in preserving, much like
Dieffenbach with the Maori.
Due to his mostly self-educated naturalist background, the fact that he had experienced
nature first hand and was exposed to hunting both at an early age, as well as the often
ornithological nature of his contributions, conservation and the natural environment logically
assume greater importance than is the case with the wide-ranging monographs of more prominent
scientists like Hochstetter. Ironically, Reischek appears to have been the most environmentally
conscious German-speaking visitor at the same time as the most destructive. Needless to say,
when he alternated between shooting birds and recording their habits, Reischek did not see an
inherent contradiction in his actions, as he was motivated by the idea that he was serving science
(a fact which is rarely mentioned in the secondary literature). For him, science was the motivating
factor which separated his innate love of nature and conservationist mentality from his state of
mind as a collector to create a dual desire to admire nature’s creations in both the wild and the
museum, making him a more complex character than most critics give credit. He also seems to
have been guided by the belief that he could preserve the country’s unique wildlife while
collecting as many specimens as necessary to fill the cabinets of certain museums around the
world, so long as the amount did not cause the complete extinction of the species in question
(although this presumably would not have stopped him shooting the last representative of a
species for the museum if he knew there were no others). And although the number of specimens
Reischek collected were far too numerous by today’s standards, it cannot be forgotten, first of all,
that hunting was a noble profession in his homeland, that he was greatly concerned for the wellbeing
of New Zealand’s long-term environment in the face of the ecological impact of man and
introduced predators, and that he frequently commented on the fate of endangered species with
the view of educating the public and promoting conservation techniques, particularly with regards
to establishing a bird sanctuary on Little Barrier Island in order to preserve many unique and rare
species from the ravages of ‘civilisation’ and harmful pests. His views on New Zealand
conservation practices are also very revealing, as they came at a time when little was known
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