Poaka/pied stilts (Himantopus himantopus) are found in warmer parts of the world and are called black-winged stilts outside of New Zealand. The New Zealand subspecies first established populations here in the 1880s; it is also found throughout Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand. They seem to like it here and cope okay with our introduced predators, unlike the critically endangered black stilts, which only breed along braided river beds in the South Island and are intensively managed by the Department of Conservation. In fact, pied stilts have displaced black stilts to some extent and the two species do interbreed, threatening the black stilt’s survival even more.
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