Seabirds Beyond the Mountain Crest: The History, Natural History and Conservation of Hutton’s Shearwater

Richard Cuthbert grew up in the English countryside and had a childhood fascination with nature and a desire to follow in the conservation footsteps of Gerald Durrell, David Bellamy and Sir Peter Scott. After obtaining a zoology degree in the UK and five years travelling in pursuit of mountains and conservation projects, he ended up in New Zealand and embarked on a PhD at the University of Otago studying Hutton's shearwaters.

This book tells the fascinating story of New Zealands endemic Huttons shearwater, a species that breeds only at two remote locations, high in the Kaikoura Mountains. Amateur ornithologist Geoff Harrow is the person most closely associated with the story of Huttons shearwater, for it was Geoff who discovered the two remaining nesting sites in the 1960s. For five decades he visited the mountains whenever he could to observe and record the birds, and to encourage the Department of Conservation and its predecessors to take steps to conserve this endangered species. As a result, scientist Richard Cuthbert was to spend three years living with 200,000 Huttons shearwaters and their neighbours, studying their behaviour, observing their interactions, measuring and recording facts and figures to build a detailed picture of why and how these birds had survived. The discoveries over time of Richard and his co-workers turned received wisdom on its head and revealed a whole new predator story. Richards beautifully written, witty account of the challenge and exasperation, the heartbreak and hardship, and the sheer joy of conservation fieldwork in a remote environment is beautifully interwoven with other fascinating stories of the discovery of the species by nineteenth-century scientists and collectors, and Geo Harrows discovery of the nesting grounds and subsequent long involvement with this species.