By the 1880s, the huia was already fading into the shadows of the North Island’s deep forests. There was once a plan—a glimmer of hope—to transfer pairs of these sacred birds to the safety of island sanctuaries like Te Hauturu-o-Toi. Unlike the hihi whose last refuge was on Hauturu, the huia had no such safe haven. Sadly, the huia transfer never happened. While we can only speculate if they would have survived, today, the huia is gone, and even the physical traces they left behind are vanishing. To understand what we lost, our Trustee Shaun Lee spent time reconstructing one of the rarest objects in Aotearoa NZ’s natural history: the huia egg. Fragments of a mystery Because the huia vanished so quickly, we have almost no physical record of their nesting biology. Today, only a single fragment of a huia egg remains at Te Papa, meaning we don’t truly know what a whole egg looked like. Huia. Egg (NMNZ OR.007640, collected by ‘Mikaera’). Wainuiomata, October 1877. Image © Te Papa by Jean-Claude Stahl. Shaun had to act as a detective when reconstructing the egg, returning to the primary records Sir Walter Buller made of two eggs collected by Mikaera in Wainuiomata in 1876 and 1877. Collected by Mikaera in Wainuiomata, October 1876. Described by Walter L. Buller. “The Museum specimen measures 1.45 by 1.05 inches, and is of a pale stone-grey, irregularly stained, freckled, and speckled with purplish-grey, the markings in some places running into dark wavy lines.” Collected by Mikaera in Wainuiomata, October 1877. Described by Walter L. Buller. “This specimen is more elliptical in form, measuring 1.8 inches in length by 1.1 in its widest diameter. It is of a very delicate stone-grey, inclining to greyish-white, without any markings except at the larger end, where there are, chiefly on one side, some scattered rounded spots and dots of dark purple-grey and brown. Towards the small end there are some obsolete specks, but over the greater portion of its surface the shell is quite plain.” Illustration by Miss Buswell. Phillipps WJ (1963) The Book of the Huia. Whitcombe and Tombs. Scan of plate VII from book found in reference collection at Auckland Council Central City Library. Note that someone has drawn over the plate in pencil. What a preserved whole egg might look like today based on Buswell’s illustration. Instead of creating a pristine, ‘freshly laid’ look for these replicas, Shaun gave them a time-worn patina – as if they had spent the last century tucked away in a velvet-lined Victorian cabinet. Since any huia egg surviving today would likely show its age, he reconstructed the subtle darkening and ‘dirty’ spots caused by old mould, which is clearly visible on the remaining fragment at Te Papa. The more patterned side. The sparser side. Shaun Lee with replica Huia egg. Shaun says the project connected him with a taonga and a poignant reminder of the biological richness we have lost. Today, the Hauturu Supporters Trust’s mission is to ensure that the species still calling the island home never become ‘what ifs’ or museum fragments.
