Kelly Samuel carefully checking the health status of an endemic Forbes Parakeet chick. Due to hunting, the introduction of domestic cats and habitat destruction, the forbes parakeets had diminished to 100 individuals on the lesser of the Mangere islands in 1938. With reforestation on Mangere Island across Douglas Basin and Robin Bush in particular, the parakeet population has recovered in a big way.br/br/Forested until the 1890s, Mangere Island was largely cleared for sheep grazing and farmed until 1966 when it was purchased by the New Zealand government and gazetted as a Nature Reserve. The last sheep were removed in 1968 with following effort to restore the flora and fauna. Several endemic Chatham Island bird species have since been reintroduced to the island including; Chatham Island Snipe, Black Robin, Chatham Island Tomtit and Shore Plover.