Talk:New Zealand raven

Why did it become extinct?
Can a specialist in the natural history of New Zealand fill in the blanks and explain why the New Zealand Raven became extinct?

Did the Maori wipe it out either directly or by destroying its food supply and/or habitat? Did the English wipe it out either directly or by destroying its food supply and/or habitat? Was it wiped out accidently by introduced diseases or introduced animals -- domestic cats, rats or others?

Whatever the cause, the biodiversity of the earth is deminished without out. (71.22.47.232 (talk) 09:08, 10 January 2011 (UTC))

Proposed merge of Chatham raven into New Zealand raven
A study published back in 2017 reclassified these two populations as subspecies of the same species. I was able to access the full text through the Wikipedia Library. The study recognizes two subspecies: the New Zealand raven (Corvus moriorum antipodum) and Chatham raven (Corvus moriorum moriorum). Separate North Island and South Islands subspecies are not recognized.

Interestingly this study is cited on both Chatham raven and New Zealand raven, but the revised taxonomy has not been fully implemented on Wikipedia yet. I consider this an oversight. New Zealand fossil ravens are a niche topic that rarely receives study, so having a change as major as this be partially overlooked for six years is disappointing but not surprising.

Consistent with this study, I propose merging the two pages. The common name is New Zealand raven, while the scientific name is Corvus moriorum. The two recognized subspecies will be mentioned in the new article.

Since the current articles called New Zealand raven and Chatham raven are stubs, I would still support the merge regardless of the revised taxonomy. (Consider the articles for the New Zealand goose and adzebills. In each case, only one article represents a genus containing two recently extinct species. I suppose there’s not enough information to talk about to merit splitting the articles on the species level, let alone the subspecies level.)

Columbianmammoth (talk) 06:46, 4 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Comment: A 2023 paper from Te Papa Press uses the phrase "Corvus moriorum (New Zealand raven)" when discussing this species, using the common name and scientific name from the 2017 study. Columbianmammoth (talk) 18:37, 4 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment: The authoritative Checklist of the Birds of New Zealand (5th edition, 2022) recognizes one species: the New Zealand raven (Corvus moriorum). It recognizes three subspecies: the North Island raven (Corvus moriorum antipodum), South Island raven (Corvus moriorum pycrafti), and Chatham raven (Corvus moriorum moriorum). Columbianmammoth (talk) 20:20, 4 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Weak support - in theory, I'd want to oppose this move as I think there's no reason why the Chatham raven shouldn't still have an article of its own even if it's a subspecies. In practice however, I think it would be better to have one solid and comprehensive article over two very small articles, and if that requires a merge at this stage them so be it. Turnagra (talk) 20:09, 25 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Support - we don't keep even modern subspecies separate, so little reason to do it for prehistoric subspecies. FunkMonk (talk) 23:07, 7 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Support As per the proposal. The checklist (p. 217) follows the 2017 study, so we should too. Podzemnik (talk) 21:55, 23 June 2024 (UTC)