Captive management and molecular sexing of endangered avian species: An application to the black stilt Himantopus novaezelandiae and hybrids Original Research Article

The black stilt Himantopus novaezelandiae is one of the worldʹs rarest wading birds. There is at present a single population (approximately 70 birds) which comprises only 12 breeding pairs. Captive breeding and rearing are important short-term treatments which can be used in efforts to rescue a species from extinction. Captive breeding programmes have been developed and used for a number of New Zealand avian species, including the black stilt. However, as with many bird species, sex assignment in the black stilt is difficult. This difficulty has resulted in captive management problems, which include the need to identify same-sex pairs and the need to retain known-sex individuals as breeding stock. We present here a DNA-based method which can be easily used to sex both captive and wild black stilts. We describe how this method is presently being used to assist in the captive rearing programme and discuss the applications that this method may have for the conservation of this bird in the wild.