Chickens arrived in New Zealand with Captain Cook, Royal Society study says

Wednesday, 3 August 2016

Fancy a chicken? Captain James Cook probably introduced chickens to our shores in his second journey to New Zealand in 1773, a new study from the Royal Society says.

In the case of which poultry character came first in New Zealand, it was the chicken.

When Captain James Cook steered the Resolution into the Marlborough Sounds in 1773 and the crew clambered ashore, they brought with them some domestic chickens, new research says.

Historians traditionally believed chickens arrived with the first Maori settlers or the big influx of European settlers in the 1800s, but a study released by The Royal Society nips that theory in the bud.

Two bones excavated from Maori sites pre-date regular European visits to New Zealand, but overlap with the arrival of James Cook's second voyage from 1773.

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The 250-year-old bones used in the study are the earliest chicken remains known in New Zealand, mostly taken from three coastal sites surrounding the Marlborough Sounds.

It figures that the bones belonged to chickens which were on Cook's ship, or descendents of chickens on Cook's ship.

Cook's journals describe the day he gifted two roosters and two hens to a local in Cloudy Bay on November 3, 1773 who 'received [them] with so much indifference, as gave me little hopes he would take proper care of them'.

He also gave two roosters and four hens to a Maori chief near Cape Kidnappers on October 22, 1773, but again wrote that the chief appeared unimpressed with the birds.

'From these records, it might seem unlikely that Cook's chickens would have persisted long enough to form self-sustaining populations,' says the research, lead by Dr Jamie Wood of Landcare Research.

Yet in some cases, Cook's pessimism was misplaced, and some chickens appeared to thrive.

Cook released chickens at West Bay in the Marlborough Sounds in 1773, and when he returned in 1774 a fresh hen's egg was discovered in the forest.

The bones examined by Wood and his team suggest the chickens may have been bred and moved by Maori along the east coast of the South Island, and possibly traded between groups.