The Real Richard Henry

Richard Henry was a pioneering New Zealand Conservationist who singlehandedly rowed more than 500 threatened kākāpō and kiwi to island sanctuaries in Fiordland in his own small rowing boat in the 1890s. His aim was to protect them from stoats, ferrets and weasels, introduced to control rabbits.

Henry saw first-hand the devastating impact these introduced predators had on our native birds. He was the first to address this issue and his actions sowed the seeds for today’s programme to make New Zealand Predator Free by 2050.

In 1894, Henry was appointed custodian and caretaker of Resolution Island in Fiordland, New Zealand’s first island reserve for native wildlife. The techniques Henry developed for capturing kākāpō and kiwi and moving them to islands, he thought were free of predators, are still in use today.

Richard is dressed authentically to the only known photograph of him, and carried a journal that he used to log the locations of all birds he relocated.

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