From Just Five Birds to Bird of the Year: The Extraordinary Survival Story of New Zealand’s Black Robin

For decades, New Zealand’s black robin was a symbol of how quickly a species can disappear.

By 1980, only five black robins were known to remain.

There were four males and just one breeding female.

Her name was Old Blue.

At that point, the species was not merely endangered. Its future was hanging by an extraordinarily thin thread. A single breeding female represented the possibility of survival, while the loss of even one of the remaining birds could have pushed the black robin closer to extinction.

Today, the story looks dramatically different.

Around 350 adult black robins live on protected islands in New Zealand’s remote Chatham Islands, according to the country’s Department of Conservation. The species remains classified as Threatened–Nationally Critical, meaning the recovery is far from complete, but the transformation from five birds to hundreds is one of New Zealand’s most remarkable conservation achievements.

In September 2026, that extraordinary comeback received another kind of recognition.

The black robin, known as karure and also as kakaruia, was named New Zealand’s Bird of the Year 2026 after receiving more than 25,000 votes in the annual public competition organized by Forest & Bird. The official competition reported 105,000 voters in total, making 2026 the largest turnout in the contest's history.

The result was more than a popularity contest.

It was an opportunity to tell the story of a bird that once came astonishingly close to disappearing forever.

A Bird Found Nowhere Else

The black robin, scientifically known as Petroica traversi, is endemic to the Chatham Islands, an isolated group of islands roughly 800 kilometers east of mainland New Zealand.

Unlike some familiar birds that share the word "robin" in their common names, the black robin is a distinctive species belonging to the Australasian robin group.

It is small, dark and almost entirely black, with black plumage, dark eyes and a dark bill. Its appearance has even earned it the affectionate nickname of the "goth" of New Zealand's bird world.

But its appearance is not what made the species famous.

The black robin became internationally recognized because of what happened when its population nearly vanished.

The species once occupied several islands across the Chatham archipelago. Human settlement dramatically changed that environment, while introduced predators such as rats and cats placed additional pressure on native wildlife.

According to New Zealand's Department of Conservation, by around 1900 introduced rats and cats had eliminated black robins from most of their former range. The remaining population eventually became restricted to Little Mangere Island.

The decline continued.

By 1976, only seven black robins remained, and the surviving birds were moved to nearby Mangere Island as part of an effort to prevent the species from disappearing.

But relocation alone could not solve the problem.

By 1980, the population had fallen to only five.

And among those five was just one fertile female.

Old Blue.

The Five Birds That Carried an Entire Species Into the Future

The situation facing conservationists was extraordinary.

Four males and one fertile female meant that the future of the species depended on an extremely small genetic and reproductive foundation.

Old Blue was paired with a male known as Old Yellow.

Together, they became the founding pair of the modern black robin population.

Every black robin alive today ultimately traces its ancestry back to that tiny surviving population, with Old Blue playing a particularly important role in the species' recovery. New Zealand's Department of Conservation says all modern black robins descend from the last breeding female and notes that Old Blue lived to approximately 14 years old.

The challenge, however, was not simply to produce eggs.

Conservationists needed to protect those eggs, ensure chicks survived and increase the number of breeding birds quickly enough to create a population capable of surviving future threats.

That required unusually intensive intervention.

The recovery programme included nest protection, supplementary feeding and a technique known as cross-fostering, in which black robin eggs or chicks were raised by another bird species.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature has described the rescue as one of the most remarkable examples of species conservation, noting that conservationists established nest protection, supplementary feeding and cross-fostering using the closely related Chatham Island tomtit.

In other words, conservationists were not simply watching the birds and hoping the population would recover naturally.

They were actively giving every possible chick a better chance of surviving.

The Unusual Role of Foster Parents

One of the most fascinating aspects of the black robin recovery was the use of other birds as foster parents.

The idea was relatively simple but required careful management.